CHAPTER EIGHT
“To your intuition attune” called out Gurjoo/Lordano as he rode off with the mayor. “There will you solutions find.” Somehow I managed to restrain my hearty thanks for his advice. I suspected that Aspe had quite different solutions in mind in the cylinder of her revolver.
My suspicions were confirmed when she turned the thing to me again, and half-to-herself said, “I’m not sure if I should kill you now, of if I have time to make you suffer for your lying and cheating that hurt Sirah so much.”
“I’m suffering now, Aspe, and I believe that my redemption will best be served if you allow me to suffer more, by seeing Sirah happy without me.” It was the best I could come up with on short notice.
Wanliet spoke up. “Aspe, there’s something you should know before you blow him to dust. He was the pilot of our ship, and if you want something from that ship, something special like our spatial location, he’ll help you more alive than dead. Sure, you could kill him now, but then you have to drag his corpse around, or bury him. Keep those legs working, his hands trembling, his eye-sockets roaming for symbols and signs, make him tremble and whine.”
I liked what he said, at least until that last part. Aspe’s eyes screwed half-shut, a common response to Wanliet’s longer thoughts. Sirah agreed, though. “Keep him alive for now, we might use him. Don’t forget that not everybody knows he’s just a fraud.”
“But your father knows, and he’ll spread the word double-plus quick.”
“I don’t think so,” replied Sirah. “He’s got no reason to, and it does make him look foolish. He’s thinking only of the Gurjoo now.”
“Could be. What do you suppose will happen when somebody recognizes that the Gurjoo came on the same ship with these two?” Aspe asked.
That took Sirah aback. “Was that Lordano?” she turned to me.
I nodded.
“You guys were quite the bunch. A fake Inspector General, a fraudulent adjutant, and a cheat of a Gurjoo. What happened to your fourth?”
“He’s in jail. I think.”
“At least one of you is where he belongs. As for Lordano, and my dad, I think they’ll go for the enlightenment on the road story, a changed man, spiritual lead-into-gold tale. My dad’ll be okay, and he won’t have to bring up these two, and Lordano won’t want to. These two still have value for us, Aspe.”
Aspe nodded, said “I like simplicity, and killing them is simple, but we can always do that later. Who knows, they may provide some entertainment value yet.
“Okay, then, Mr. Daskal, I guess our next move is to your ship. Where is it?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I mean, we didn’t have any landmarks when we landed, so I can only say, let’s head to Caliuga City, keep going, and then try to find the path that crosses the mountains northeast of the City. There’s a plateau, and we’re on it.” In truth I knew exactly where the ship was, having landed it, but I figured the more we wandered around, the more opportunities for escape.
“We’ll take the speeder. I had a crew come out from Chugtallis and fix it since I had that accident in the rain a couple of weeks ago. She’s not pretty, but she flies. We’ll be safe, Sirah.”
‘Accident in the rain’? Maybe chasing some riders in a storm? This kind of confirmed the way I’d been thinking back then, so it wasn’t a shock, but it did make me more respectful of the levels of duplicity we’d stumbled into.
Wanliet and I settled in on the aft bench, just ahead of our luggage. This was quite a drop in style and comfort, for this speeder was kind of basic. It had no roof, the heater probably only warmed the knees of the pilot and co-pilot, and the navigational aids probably were impossible to fold up again once you opened them, exactly as if Wanliet had supplied them.
I was glad the day had been warm, but even the longest day comes to an end, and night was coming. I offered a common-sense alternative to our mad rush to destiny. “Unless she’s a lot faster than she looks, we won’t get to the ship until after nightfall. And that’s after we get a late-afternoon cloudburst. We’re likely to find a tree or cliff real fast in the dark, in strange territory. I suggest we stay here tonight, leave early tomorrow before anybody can find us here.”
Aspe was inclined to depart immediately, just because I’d suggested we stay. “Jaf has a point, Aspe” said Sirah. “I’d hate for anyone to get hurt.”
“Before it’s his time,” finished Aspe. She was torn, because she wanted to be rid of me as soon as was feasible, but didn’t know for sure how soon that would be. When we found the ship? After we’d checked the computers and stores on her? Or might I still have value, as an adjutant to the IG, if his cover were still good? She was likely to make the decision based on her jealousy and hatred of me, not on reason, so I had to avoid antagonizing her. “Once we’re there, you’ll know more, and then you can think better, calmer, in a place where no one might surprise us,” I offered up.
“One pride follows another, until there are no more herds, and one tongue lashes the other, until there are no more words,” offered Wanliet. It calmed down Aspe, and we ended up spending the night at the ranch, and Aspe even made Wanliet some of her tea. He was very grateful. Then they tied us up. For Wanliet’s sake,I hoped the tea wasn’t a diuretic.