They hugged the core of the spiraling structure, shaped like a cantilevered staircase of three-meter steps. Helping each other slide from one level to the next, landing lightly on the balls of their feet with knees bent to take the shock, they moved as if stalking a peimu. Once on the ground they crouched in shadow to catch their breaths and listen. Pulou sniffed the wind, grimaced at its iciness, but he motioned, “Go.”
The snow lay nearly knee-deep, wet and heavy. Too heavy to just plow through, and too deep to continuously step over. Almost like walking upstream in knee-deep water, Tristan thought, but harder because the snow concealed everything underfoot.
“Stupid things, flat-tooth boots!” Pulou said once, and flung out his arms to keep his balance. “I can’t feel ground where I walk!”
Tristan only nodded agreement. He panted with his own efforts, actually sweating under his layered clothing.
They had pushed their way a mile into the forest when the wind brought distant baying like a warning. Pulou heard it first. He stiffened at Tristan’s shoulder, baring his teeth. “Jous!” he said.
Abattoir never forgets a scent, the governor had said. Tristan stared about himself. Saw a broken branch protruding from a drift. “Go on,” he said, nudging Pulou, and tugged the limb free of the snow.
Baying swelled on the wind, closing on them. The wind buffeted their backs but it wouldn’t cover their trail. Not in time. “Hurry!” Tristan panted. “Lightning wall is close. They won’t follow through that! Run, Pulou!”
Something slammed into his shins; the snow rose up to catch him in its cold. Tristan shoved himself up on shaky arms, gritting his teeth at throbbing in his shins, and saw Pulou in the snow beside him, trying to gain his own feet and shake the whiteness from his coat. He glanced back as he struggled up.
Drifted snow had concealed the trunk of a fallen tree.
The bearhounds’ cries carried to him. Pulou stiffened, and Tristan retrieved his branch. “Hurry! They’re closer!”
In the splintered lantern light swinging after them, three shapes materialized, lumbering easily through snow that drifted as deep as their bellies. Their baying echoed from trees stripped by the elements.
“Too close!” Pulou hissed. His claws closed hard on Tristan’s shoulder and his eyes grew vicious on the verge of tsaa’chi. “Too close to run from!”
On impulse, Tristan pushed him toward the nearest tree. “Get up there! Hurry! I come behind you.”
He had no time. Pulou barely got out of reach before the lead bearhound crashed through brittle brush and launched himself over the fallen log. Pursuer’s bay died to killer’s snarl. Tristan seized his branch like a quarterstaff and put his back to the trunk of Pulou’s tree.
The dog leaped for his throat.
Tristan intercepted with the limb.
Fangs grazed his glove. One broke on the frozen wood, but the bearhound held on. The dog shook his head, snarling, tugging to wrest the limb from Tristan’s hands. A dark splash stained the back of his glove and he gasped, surprised that he felt no pain.
Paws broader than his hand raked his shoulders, shredding the sheet. Teeth flashed around the gag of branch, straining to reach him. Steamy dog breath tickled Tristan’s face.
He shifted his grip on the limb, abruptly twisting it up to the right. It threw the dog off his feet, rolling it over in the snow.
The other two lunged in, growling, before the first regained its feet. One took the thick end of the limb in the chest and reeled back, yelping; the other caught a swipe across the face with the branching end.
The first dog sprang again, slavering blood.
Lights flared over the area and a voice, sharp on the wind, brought the dogs to a quivering stance. The leader licked it abused mouth, questioning its master with its eyes as its mates drew up at its flanks.
Tristan didn’t lower his weapon.
Renier strode across the clearing, the lanterns at his back casting him into stark silhouette. His face remained in shadow, indiscernible, and Tristan shifted his hands, tightening his grip on the branch. His whole frame shook.
“What is this, Tristan?” the governor demanded, his tone taut, but whether with anger or exertion Tristan couldn’t tell. “What’s going on here?”
“My mother’s sick!” Tristan shouted. He let his anger color his own voice. “Her family is here and you know it! All I want is to help her!”
Renier gestured. Two shapes carrying lamps detached themselves from the darkness to leash the hounds. Masuk shapes. Tristan ignored them, waiting, aware that they had withdrawn only by the snow’s crunch under their boots and the dogs’ diminished whuffing. He kept his vision locked on the governor.
When they stood alone in the icy dark Renier said, “If your mother’s life is so important to you, Tristan, this will not happen again.”
Thirteen
Tristan turned his head, squinting against gusts that slashed his face with liquid ice. He raised one hand to shield himself, and stumbled. He staggered to stay on his feet and paused, panting.
Whuffing came hard behind him, eager, encouraged by a handler loosening the leashes. Tristan glowered over his shoulder. b’Anar Id Pa’an leered back through a mustache matted with snow, showing his teeth, and shook the leashes again. “Move, pup,” he snarled.
Moments later, Pulou’s boot caught in underbrush. He tugged at it twice to free it and lost his balance. Both hands flailed to catch himself. He got to his knees, snow covered, and flung up an arm to shield himself when the bearhounds lunged.
Pa’an jerked them up inches from closing on Pulou. His laughter rose over the wind as he twisted the leashes about his wrists.
“Jou’s whelp!” Tristan interposed himself between gan and dogs, his hand hovering near the knife in his belt. “Don’t do that again!”
Pa’an raised bushy eyebrows. “Look what’s whining whelp!” He loosed the leashes—
The knife flashed free in Tristan’s hand.
Something slapped it away, caught at his wrist; the knife sliced into a drift at the foot of a tree and vanished. He wrenched around—and recoiled from fury in Pulou’s eyes.
“Don’t,” the gan said, still gripping his wrist.
Pa’an showed his canine teeth in a leer and played with the bearhounds’ leashes.
Tristan shot a glance at the spot where his knife had disappeared and felt Pulou’s hand tighten.
“Turn your back, little brother.”
He hesitated. Glowered at the masuk. And turned his back to him.
An hour later he sank to his heels in the mansion’s lift, away from Pulou, and leaned his head against the wall, his eyes closed against the others’ gazes. He gulped at the warm air, coughing at the cold ache in his lungs and shivering in sodden clothing.
The lift didn’t stop on the level where his room was located. He glanced up, questioning the governor with his glower.
Renier said, “Your room is too badly damaged to occupy now, Tristan. Avuse is moving to let you have the servant’s quarters outside my rooms.”
The lift door sighed open. Tristan didn’t move, just sat until Rajak poked him with his boot toe. Then he shot to his feet, twisting about with his teeth bared and his hand raised.
Pulou caught his arm, gripping it hard enough for him to feel claws through his sleeve, but Tristan winced at the expression in his eyes.
Rajak only grunted and shoved him toward the door, and everybody else followed him into the foyer.
“This way, Tristan,” said Renier.
The servant’s room turned out to be a curtained antechamber outside the governor’s sleeping room, a mere box smaller than his quarters on Issel’s moon and as chilly as the suite downstairs. It had no window, no lavatory of its own, only a bed and a tall cupboard against the facing wall.
He didn’t step inside until Pulou nudged his shoulder. He kept his back to the governor as he tore off what remained of his camoufla
ge sheet, wadded it, and hurled it onto the bed. When he glanced up again, Renier and the others had gone.
Blood stained his right glove. He examined it, found no tear in it, no mark but a small bruise on his hand when he pulled off the glove. He remembered teeth closing on frozen wood, hot breath in his face, the bearhound slavering blood as it held him at bay. He shuddered, and flung the glove into a corner.
Wet parka and boots and trousers peeled off with more difficulty. Tristan tugged at them with stiff hands as he shivered. His teeth still chattered. The bruises across his shins had already swollen and discolored.
Pulou offered him a blanket pulled off the bed and said, “Sit down,” as Tristan wrapped himself in it.
Tristan sat, sullen, his back to the gan.
“I’m sorry,” said Pulou, “that I take your knife when masuk watches.”
Tristan glared at the wall. “Then why do you do it?”
“Tsaa’chi is serious thing, little brother. Always, someone dies.”
Tristan snapped around to face him. “You let tsaa’chi come when we fall!”
“Yes.” Pulou nodded once, slightly. “Because I see no way out. You show me, in tree. If jous are too strong for you, I let it come again, but they’re not.”
“But masuk turns jous on you when we come back!”
“Not real danger,” said Pulou. “He teases, like jous at home when they’re not hungry. To turn your back is best.”
“He makes me angry.”
Pulou stared at him, eyes narrowed to amber slivers. “Yes. But tsaa’chi brings death. Is anger important enough to die about?”
Tristan lowered his head, turning his face away. “No,” he said after a moment, and sighed. “I’m sorry, Pulou.” He felt suddenly exhausted.
But, curled back-to-back with Pulou for mutual warmth, he stared at the wall. Half-sleep brought nightmares of the woods, and the governor standing like a threat between himself and the lights of Aeire City, a threat that left him with no way out.
* *
The overcast had blown away by the next morning, uncovering a sky bright enough to make Tristan squint. The wind hadn’t died, though. It drove snow before it like sand, shaping ripples and dunes that glittered in the sunlight. Gusts reddened faces and stiffened hands in mere minutes, and watching it even from the enclosed gallery made him shiver.
He turned his vision on the landing strip, on four starcraft waiting in a row like so many needles. He raised a pair of televiewers to his eyes.
For a moment he thought he’d been transported to the side of one ship; he felt surprised that he couldn’t hear the voices of the crewmen moving over and around it. He began to put out a hand to touch its skin, then jerked back, feeling foolish at being caught in the illusion. He glanced at Larielle and Pulou to see if they had noticed and felt relieved when they hadn’t.
The starcraft had short wings swept close to their fuselages, canopies that rode like streamlined bubbles where a fish’s dorsal fin would be, and twin vertical stabilizers. Scrutinizing them, Tristan felt his breath catch in his throat. He nudged Pulou. “My father flies in things like that,” he said.
“These IS-30 Javelin fighters are the most recent addition to our arsenal,” the governor told his guests. “They are transatmospheric craft capable of deploying either from surface bases or spacecraft carriers. Although they are not lightskip capable, they can reach hypersonic speeds within the atmosphere to achieve escape velocity, and they are exceptionally maneuverable in both atmospheric and space flight, as you will see. They are armed with two internal plasma cannon and have six internal wing rails for launching a variety of ordnance.”
Tristan shut out the monologue and watched as groundcrews scrambled clear of their craft and stood in rigid files behind the mounting ladders. Movement at his right caught his attention; he focused on four men in silver flight suits, egress packs on their shoulders, helmets in the crooks of their arms. They strode across the landing field in step, heedless of the snow-laden wind, and each pivoted sharply to his own ship. Tristan watched one man hand his helmet to his crew chief, romp up the mounting ladder, settle into the cockpit. Watched his groundcrew secure his harness and help him with helmet and oxygen mask.
“Our pilots,” the governor continued, “are trained here at the Aeire City Academy. We’ll take a tour of the facilities after the aerial demonstration. These particular pilots are instructors with at least three thousand hours of flight time each, mostly in interceptor-type craft.”
His masuk guests grunted acknowledgement. Tristan couldn’t help wondering how much they actually understood. He felt quite certain that no masuk could squeeze into a cockpit.
In a moment the crewmen withdrew. Crew chiefs and pilots exchanged hand signals; engines fired up one by one. Walking backward before the lead Javelin’s starboard wing, its crew chief beckoned. The needle rolled forward, pivoted to starboard; the others fell in line. Tristan saw the leader’s afterburners flare orange, baring black tarmac behind it as it melted off snow and began to move. Tristan felt its thunder as it accelerated; his heart rate accelerated with it. It shot down the strip, forward landing gear thrusting its nosecone to the sky, and rotated. It rocketed vertically from the surface, and the others followed in a wedge.
Thrusters’ echoes shook the gallery. Tristan felt breathless. His hands tightened on the televiewers. The whole world had disappeared except for him and that starcraft, one in flight.
Flashing splinters left vapor trails across the frozen sky, twisted them into a helix, braided the wind. Wingmen rolled out in opposite directions, turning on ailerons into level attitude, and banked around to cut a crossover with their leaders before rejoining the formation like fish swimming close in a school.
An hour later they screamed into final approach as one. Landing gear reached for the surface; they taxied to a halt before the gallery. Canopies popped, oxygen masks fell away, gauntlets touched helmets in salute.
Tristan studied the pilots’ faces.
He and Pulou lagged behind the others as they walked through the academy’s hangars. He paused to run a hand along a trainer ship’s short wing, to fix its stiletto shape in his mind for a dream he wouldn’t have to wake from. That night, lying on his belly in a shroud of blanket, he traced the Javelins’ aerobatics in the carpet with his finger.
* *
Tristan glanced up from the Pocket Tutor as Renier entered the sitting room flanked by Avuse and two masuki, but Larielle patted his arm and said, “Go on, Tris. You’re doing very well.”
Conscious of the governor pausing across the table from him, he returned his attention to the display. “De-spite their limi-ted role in de-ter-min-ing the final . . . out-come?” He glanced at Larielle for confirmation.
“That’s right,” she said. “It means how something turns out in the end.”
Tristan nodded and went on. “—the final outcome of the con-flick— What’s that?” He pointed at the miniature monitor.
“Just a minute, one at a time,” Larielle said, and tapped the monitor. “What’s that again?”
“Conflick,” said Tristan.
“Not quite. What does that little mark on the second character do to it?”
“Oh. Con-flict.” Tristan planted an elbow on the table to support his head in his hand. “What does it mean?”
“Ask the Tutor,” said Larielle.
Tristan sighed. “Define ‘conflict,’” he said.
“Conflict,” the Tutor responded. “War; struggle; disagreement between opposing ideas or forces.”
“Do you understand that?” Larielle asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Now,” she said, “look at the other word, one character at a time.”
Tristan said, “Na Shiv-ish?” and questioned her with his look.
“Yes,” she said. “People from Na Shiv. That’s another world in the Issel Sector.”
“Na Shiv-ish,” Tristan repeated to himsel
f, and continued, “—troops formed the ma-jor-ity of the sur-face forces.”
Larielle nodded. “Good. Why don’t you ask the Tutor to read that passage back to you now?”
Tristan shrugged and opened his mouth to make the request, but the governor chuckled. “I think that’s enough reading for this evening, my dear. Come now.” He turned away. “We’ll have chelle tonight, Avuse.”
Reaching for the Tutor's ‘off’ button, Tristan nudged Pulou with his foot and rose, and the gan emerged from under the table. They joined the others before another fireplace with artificial flames, and Tristan took the chair farthest from the masuki.
Avuse brought a tray of goblets and a crystal carafe from the vacuwaiter, placed the tray on the table at the governor’s elbow and poured crimson liquid from the carafe.
Tristan accepted the glass offered to him. The red liquid smelled spoiled, but the others either didn’t notice or didn’t mind. He took a sip. The drink tingled on his tongue. He grimaced and set the glass down.
Across from him, the governor said, “I’m pleased with your progress over this past month, Tristan.”
He glanced up but said nothing.
“Your reading skills and confidence with the Tutor are improving,” Renier continued. “I sense your hunger for the education you’ve never had.” He ran a finger around the rim of his own goblet and looked at Tristan directly. “I think it’s time you were granted that opportunity.”
The words seemed generous, but something about his tone left Tristan wary. “Why?” he asked.
The governor appeared mildly surprised. “Your father would have wanted the best for you, my boy. Since he’s not able to provide it, I feel that I should.”
In his periphery, Tristan saw the masuki grinning at him with their bared teeth and tongues. Something about all of it put him on edge, making him increasingly uneasy. “Why?” he said again. “You don’t even like my father.”
The governor’s expression turned suddenly cold. “’Why’ is of no concern to you, Tristan. I expect only your compliance in this matter. The arrangements for you to enter the Aeire City Academy next month have already been completed.”
“Next month?” Tristan stared at him, stiffening in his chair. “I can’t do that!”
“You can and you will,” the governor said. His voice grew quiet, his jaw taut, but his eyes, locked on Tristan’s, burned with warning. “It’s very important to me, young one,” he said.