Ruiz nodded, already preoccupied by his plans. He had tried to put away the speculations that now disturbed Nisa. His mind still felt raw, and somehow less well connected to the world, as if some crucial disintegration had occurred when he had released the locked-down areas. He felt a little out of control, as though his thoughts were no longer entirely his servants, as though they no longer obeyed the boundaries he had always placed around them. His mind seemed, as it had not in so many years, to be unknown territory. Perhaps, he thought, it was partly because the weight of the mission-imperative was gone, leaving him a little light-headed and unfocused.
Whenever his attention strayed, and he began to imagine the clones slowly developing in their gestation tanks, he shifted his thoughts to other matters.
Nisa spoke again. “It’s strange, Ruiz. I wonder if what I feel now is anything like the way that peasants feel, when they must sell their children to the slavetaker or let them starve.”
There was such a forlorn tone in her voice that he put his arm around her and pulled her close. “We made a hard choice, but it’s done. Who knows; their lives may be far sweeter than ours.”
Chapter 10
By the time Lensh and Fensh found Corean, two days after the crash, she was thoroughly sick: of the bog, of her companions, of the stink of death that soaked through every rent in the sled’s hull, of the sour odor of her own unwashed body.
The airboat approached cautiously, and though she was pleased to see that the feline brothers were showing signs of prudence, she was also impatient to be done with the bog. No one had molested them and she had seen no sign of life around the manor house… but who knew when the survivors, if they existed, might muster sufficient courage to try to avenge their losses.
“Hurry,” she shouted, waving from the broken lock. But the brothers circled the site once more, apparently scanning for booby traps, before they landed the boat at the edge of the bog, a fastidious distance from the carrion scattered about in front of the sled.
Without waiting for Marmo and the Moc, Corean stepped out and began to wade through the thigh-deep mire. She arrived at the boat’s lock, just as Lensh cracked open the armor and stuck his short-muzzled head out.
His eyewhiskers rose quizzically. “You seem the worse for wear, mistress.”
She snarled wordlessly at him, and shoved past, bound for the closest hygiene station. She wanted a shower, more than anything but Ruiz Aw’s death.
When she discovered that the brothers had yet to fix the boat’s ruptured plumbing, her anger filled the boat, so that no one dared speak, not even the brothers, who ordinarily refused to be intimidated by her displeasure.
“Where to, mistress,” asked Fensh, finally. “Home?”
She turned unbelieving eyes on him. “Are you mad? Home? No, to SeaStack, as fast as you can.”
Ruiz drove through the less-traveled channels of SeaStack, following a dimly remembered route. The channels grew increasingly deserted. They met with none of the common hazards of SeaStack: junior pirates practicing their future trade, press gangs for the pirate fleets, lunatics seeking violent entertainment.
The others had nothing to say, which left Ruiz free to formulate — and then discard — plan after plan. The difficulties were many. The launch rings of SeaStack were controlled by the pirate lords, who exercised a rigorous security. If Ruiz attempted to buy passage on an upbound shuttle, all sorts of uncomfortable questions would be asked. Who are you? What were you doing on Sook? Are you in any way connected with the Art League, or with any other supra-system legal entity? Their brainpeel tech would undoubtedly be better than Corean’s; naive to assume that he could fool them. And what if Corean were to broadcast a reward for their capture? That was not an unusual tactic for slavers seeking escaped property.
The only other launch rings in SeaStack were owned by various alien embassies, who were if anything more paranoid than the pirates.
If they were allowed to leave the city, they might attempt a coastwise journey, west to the Camphoc Protectorate, where a mercantile center and associated launch complex existed. But such a voyage would be dangerous; though some local commerce moved along that route, it was preyed on by pirate trainees in search of on-the-job experience.
They might attempt to steal an airboat, which would convey them to any of a thousand neutral launch rings — but in SeaStack thievery was a way of life, and anything as valuable as an airboat would be elaborately protected. And leaving would still be problematical.
Several overland routes suggested themselves, but they all had their particular hazards — and Corean might more easily find them, outside the protective complexity of SeaStack’s warrens.
Ruiz shook his head wearily. He needed help, as much as he feared the risks implicit in such assistance. He knew of only one place in SeaStack he might look for help — but he would certainly be asked to pay a price for it. He hoped it wouldn’t be too high.
He tried to stop thinking, to give himself to the simple enjoyment of his new freedom. Who knew how long it would last? Gradually he succeeded.
An hour later they pulled under a low broad archway, which spelled out, in letters of wrought iron, “The Diamond Bob Pens.” Inside was an anchorage crowded with a variety of boats, from armored gunboats to sleek speedneedles to ragged wood-hulled junks.
Ruiz turned to the others. “Do you trust me?” he asked.
Nisa smiled. “Of course.”
“Why not?” said Molnekh, and then he shrugged.
After a time, Dolmaero nodded cautiously.
“Good,” said Ruiz. He gestured toward the landing at the innermost wall of the anchorage. Two security mechs stood sentry on each side of a heavy blast door, now closed. “I need to leave you all in a safe place, while I go and try to arrange passage offworld. This is the only such place I could think of.”
“What is it, Ruiz?” asked Nisa.
“It’s a slave pen,” he answered. “It caters to transient dealers who need a place to keep their stock while they make more permanent arrangements.”
Their faces fell. “Oh,” said Nisa in a small voice.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. No one will harm you here, and even if Corean locates you, she’d have to raise an army to get you out. These pens are sanctioned by the pirate lords; she’d have to be insane to antagonize them.”
“She is insane, Ruiz,” said Nisa.
“Not that insane,” he said, and thought: Or so we must hope.
A moment of uneasy silence passed, and then Dolmaero spoke. “And what will happen to us, if you do not return?”
“That’s a possibility for which I have no solution.” The procedure followed by the pen was to keep the merchandise until the prepaid fee was exhausted — and then, after a short grace period, to sell the stock in the open market.
“Is it possible you’ll not return?” Dolmaero spoke with reluctant determination.
“Anything can happen,” said Ruiz. “But truly, Dolmaero, I don’t know what else to do. You don’t understand what a dangerous place SeaStack is; you wouldn’t survive a day unprotected. There are hotels, but their security is a joke — Corean would have no trouble locating and recapturing you, if I left you there. I’ll deposit sufficient funds for a week’s maintenance; I’ll surely be back before that.”
“I believe you,” Dolmaero said heavily. “But I’m worried. To have no control at all over one’s fate… it’s not a happy feeling. Still, I suppose that even in the worst case, we’ll be in no worse condition than we were when Corean had us.”