“You look hot, dear,” Lorenza said. “Here—have a glass of juice.” She produced a glass, snatched no doubt from some passing waiter, and offered it. Cecelia didn’t want juice; she wanted out. But she had promised to be good; she tried not to grimace as she sipped the tangy-sweet juice. Interesting flavor—spiced with cinnamon and something else, she decided. She turned to thank Lorenza, and found to her surprise that the other woman had disappeared.
Cecelia gasped. She was shaking, her heart racing, and someone had hold of her hands. She knew, after a wild moment of panic, where she was, and what had happened. Lorenza. Lorenza had poisoned her. And she knew why, or part of why. It made sense now. And she had to tell them, before Lorenza poisoned Ronnie and Berenice and Bunny’s family and the Mahoneys . . . and for that matter Heris and the crew and the prince.
“Cecelia! Tell us . . . try . . .”
Struggling, fighting her uncooperative body, she managed to spell it out. L.o.r.e.n.z.a. D.i.d. I.t. They didn’t have to ask her what; they understood that much. Brun’s voice cut across the others.
“The Crown Minister’s sister? That Lorenza?”
Yes. Back to the new signal system; it was faster than spelling.
“Why?” Brun asked, and put the keyboard into her hands.
Dared she tell now? What if Lorenza had an agent here? Panic shook her, but she had to try it. If she died, she had to save the others.
Letter by letter, she got it out; no one interrupted. “P.r.i.n.c.e. m.a.d.e. s.t.u.p.i.d. D.r.u.g.s. K.i.n.g. k.n.o.w.s. G.e.o.r.g.e. d.e.m.o. L.o.r.e.n.z.a. g.a.v.e. d.r.u.g. R.o.n.n.i.e. n.o.t.i.c.e.d. T.o.l.d. m.e.”
“And you told the king—Ronnie said that,” Brun broke in then. “He didn’t tell me about George . . . but I remember a joke about the term George almost flunked out of school. Was that it?”
Bless her wits. Yes.
“Lorenza did it because you know—because you told the king, and he must’ve told the Crown Minister who told her—and that means she might get the others. Ronnie—!”
Yes.
“His family?”
Yes.
“More?”
Yes. Of course, you idiot! When she finally could, she would give Carly an earful about what nonverbal people really wanted to say.
“Right, let me think.” Brun thought aloud, either from habit or courtesy to Cecelia; Cecelia could imagine her intent face. “Anyone Ronnie might’ve talked to. His family. Me. Maybe my family as well. And George! Of course, and George’s father. Heris Serrano, she knew, but I don’t know if anyone else knows that.”
Yes. The king would figure it out; he would already have told the Crown Minister. And didn’t Brun say something about Heris having a mission from the king, that apparent theft of the yacht?
“So what do we do?” That was Brun to the others, and the gabble of voices rose. Cecelia began spelling again; that silenced them for the moment.
“G.o. t.e.l.l. R.o.n.n.i.e. G.o. t.o. R.o.c.k.h.o.u.s.e. w.a.r.n. t.h.e.m.”
“Me?” Brun asked
Yes. They would listen to Brun; they wouldn’t listen to any of the others. “C.a.r.e.f.u.l.” she spelled.
“I’ll leave now,” Brun said in her ear. “I’ll be careful, and I’ll make sure no one else gets hurt.” With a quick hug, she was gone; Cecelia heard her quick steps on the stairs.
It was all very well to say “I’ll leave now,” but she could hardly walk to the nearest spaceport carrying her clothes in a sack. Brun rummaged through her drawers, trying to think of twenty things at once. She needed her papers, her credit cubes, enough clothes. How long would it take by commercial carriers? What were their schedules? Why hadn’t she kept the yacht here? That was easy—it had to go somewhere else and not be obvious about it. She didn’t even know where it was.
“I’ll drive you to the port.” That was Driw, the groom who helped with the hippotherapy. She had ridden out with Driw, times she wasn’t with Cecelia; she liked the tough, competent little woman.
“I don’t even know when things leave,” Brun said. Driw grinned at her.
“Here—the closest thing we have to a schedule.” A battered folder, listing every ship that intended to arrive at the port for a year at a time. Which meant not often. “Are you going to travel in that?” That being the shorts and pullover Brun had put on as usual that morning. With a startled look at herself in the mirror, Brun dove into the shower, then into something that wouldn’t instantly trigger suspicions. She hoped.
On the bumpy road out, she quit trying to read the schedule and instead tried to remember all the things Captain Serrano had told her. Cautions, things to think of—too many. Driw drove the way Cecelia had ridden in the horse trials: flat out, attacking every obstacle (curves, corners, other traffic) with utter concentration. When they reached the paved road that led to the port, Brun dared to say, “Are there any traffic laws?”
Driw chuckled. She had both legs extended, and one arm hanging out the window of the stable feed truck. “Yes . . . but not much enforcement. As long as I don’t kill anybody—” She paused, to swerve around a tractor hauling three huge round bales of hay. “—we shouldn’t have any problems. The port’s on our side of the city.”
Brun could just read the fine print of the schedule now; the truck only lurched occasionally. She had lost track of the date and had to ask Driw, who only knew it in local time: they had thirteen thirty-two day months, with names like Ock and Bir and Urg. For a moment her mind drifted to the possible language of the first settlers, then she dragged it back to the important stuff. If this was 14 Urg, then . . . damn. Nothing due for two days; she might as well have stayed at the stable.
“Except that there’s other stuff sometimes,” Driw said. “You know—casual, unscheduled stuff. It’s faster, I hear. Kareem got to the Wherrin Trials in less than eight days, while the shortest scheduled passenger time was twelve. ’Course, it’s kind of rough, he said, but I figured you were in a hurry.”
Brun nodded. She could always find a room at the port, she supposed. She didn’t remember much about it, actually, landing with Cecelia in the shuttle that one time. It had seemed small and bare, compared to the commercial ports she knew, but busier than the home port on Sirialis. She would just have to figure it out herself. That felt scary, but also exciting.
It was more scary and less exciting three hours later, after Driw had dropped her off at the shabby little shuttle terminal. The status board there showed nothing up at the Station but a bulk hauler headed for Romney—the wrong direction. Her schedule was out of date; the next scheduled passenger ship, also to Romney, wouldn’t arrive for four days. Unscheduled was, of course, unscheduled. The shuttle . . . the shuttle, she realized, meant there was only one . . . was on its way up, and wouldn’t be back until the next day. In the meantime, there was nowhere to sleep, because the people who ran the hostel were on vacation.
Brun put her gear in a locker and wandered outside. The shuttleport was also the regional airport; that terminal lay across a half mile or so of paved runways and scrubby grass. She could see aircraft moving over there, and wondered if any other terminal would do better. Probably not: there was only one Station aloft, and what mattered was its traffic. No wonder they hadn’t been found yet.
“Hey—you!” She turned to find the shuttleport clerk leaning out the door. He waved, and she strode back in. “You’re that friend of Cecelia de Marktos, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Brun said, wondering slightly.