Hugh nodded and said, “Amir Naith’s Gulli. I owe you my life.”
Olafsson did not handle him roughly, but did keep a firm grip on his arm as he guided the Fudir down the hallway. Handsome Jack Garrity came out of his office as they passed. The Fudir nodded infinitesimally to him, and Handsome Jack returned the gesture, and the Fudir continued under Olafsson’s guidance, satisfied with this microscopic farewell.
Olafsson’s yacht had carried a light ground car that could ride on surface effect, magnetic tramline, or inflated wheels, as circumstances required. Granted, it was not much of a vehicle. Made of “solid smoke” for lightness and jointed to fold compactly, it nevertheless worried the Fudir when he saw it. Confederate couriers normally traveled lean and swift; stealth was more their mode. Had Olafsson stolen a ship from someone else? And if so, what had he done with the owner?
The streets were encumbered with construction materials and demolition debris, around which Olafsson wove with patient skill. At the intersection of Port and MacDonald, one of the new gardies halted them for a time while he waved a debris lorry backward into the lot where a row of shops were coming down. The site contractor saw the Fudir and came over to the ’buggi waving a paper. “Tell Hugh,” he said, “that the composites haven’t come up yet from Fermoy for the Jackson Street reconstruction.” The Fudir smiled and said he would.
Olafsson made no comment until the gardy had waved them through and they turned onto Port Road. “When did you plan to tell him?” was all he asked.
On the spaceport hard, the Fudir stood by Olafsson’s yacht while the robot hoist folded the dũbuggi and raised it into the cargo hold, and the boarding stairs deployed from amidships. The Fudir chafed at the speed of it all, and glanced repeatedly toward the maintenance gate, through the maze of wrecked shuttles and lighters and bumboats that the Cynthians left behind. He was anxious to leave, but the timing had to be right.
“Expecting someone?” Olafsson asked. He had been watching the hoist keenly, but the Fudir was not surprised to find him aware of the goings-on about him.
“I thought it might rain,” he said, indicating dark red clouds gathering above the distant Reeks. The hot, violent updrafts on the other side sometimes created rains of gray ash over the Vale. Olafsson spared them only a glance.
“We’ll be gone before then. It’s the bicyclist that bothers me.”
“Bicyclist…”
“It’s your friend,” Olafsson said a moment later as the approaching figure rounded a blasted ICC packet. “I hope he doesn’t intend to prevent your leaving.” He surreptitiously loosened the flap on one of his pockets.
The bike that O’Carroll had taken was too small for his frame and he appeared almost comical, an awkward set of pumping knees, as he rode between two shattered corporate shuttles.
“Climb the stairs, Fudir,” said Olafsson, stepping between him and Hugh.
“That would be rude,” the Fudir answered. “I think he’s come to say good-bye.”
Olafsson grunted, but made no response.
Hugh turned his bike into a tight circle and skidded to a stop just in front of them. Letting the bike fall to the ground, he strode up to the departing pair. “I finally remembered,” he said, pointing a finger at the Fudir, “when I first met ‘Kalim DeMorsey,’ and I’m after wondering how this spalpeen knew of that name at all.”
Olafsson may have been expecting a great many things, but this was not among them, and he turned to give the Fudir a puzzled look, for the Fudir had given him that very name to use on the warrant.
The courier had not shown many lapses of attention in the short time the Fudir had known him, but this one was all that Little Hugh needed. He tackled Olafsson around the chest, pinning his arms to his side and knocking the man to the ground. The Fudir was impressed. Hugh had to believe he was fighting a Hound’s Pup; and that meant he had tossed both legal and physical prudence to the winds.
Olafsson appeared to no more than shrug and Hugh was thrown aside. Hugh rolled and rose—and Olafsson already had a weapon in his hand.
“Don’t shoot!” the Fudir cried.
Olafsson cocked his head, but this time he did not take his eyes off the O’Carroll. “I didn’t think there were more than five men alive who could have done what you did, and four of them are…I’m sorry, PM, but your friend really is urgently needed on Jehovah. Now, I’d suggest leaving as quickly as you came.”
“Sahbs,” said the Fudir. “Company.”
A band of armed toughs had emerged from the two wrecked company shuttles and advanced now on the three men standing at the base of the yacht. At their head strode Voldemar O’Rahilly wearing a sleeveless vest and bearing the sweep-gun he’d been given by the ICC during the Cynthian raid. Hugh, unarmed, turned to face them.
The Direct Action fighters leveled their weapons; but O’Rahilly raised his left arm and patted them down. “There’s no need for blood this day, boyos,” he said. “Hugh and I, we’ve spilt too much blood together for me to be happy spilling his.” Then, to Hugh, “But it seems to me only fair that if you arrived here with the Terran, you should leave with him as well.” His bearded lips split into a red grin. “Symmetry’s appealing, ain’t it?”
“But the Cause…” Hugh protested.
“Will carry on widdout yez; as we did durin’ yer exile. Come on, now, the both of ye, be boardin’ the yacht.”
The both of ye? The Fudir looked for Olafsson and saw him nowhere. Had he managed to slip unseen into his ship? But no, he spied the courier now, in the midst of Voldemar’s men. And with a weapon in either hand.
The Fudir wasn’t sure he liked the odds on that; but neither was he sure which way the odds broke. “Hugh, better do as he says.”
The O’Carroll raised a chin. “And if I don’t?”
“I said I wouldn’t be happy wid it,” Voldemar answered. “Never said I wouldn’t do it.” And with that, he aimed his sweeper directly at the Fudir.
As a way of not shedding O’Carroll blood, it was ingenious; but the Fudir wished O’Rahilly had picked some other way.
But Voldemar hesitated and the Fudir realized that Olafsson was now standing directly behind him and one of his weapons was shoved against Voldemar’s spine. “I’d really rather you not damage my goods,” the courier told the faction leader.
The Fudir saw a cloud of doubt pass across Voldemar’s face and the two of them locked gazes for a moment. Then Voldemar shrugged. “What we got here,” he said, “is what yez’d call a ‘conundrum.’ Ye can kill me, for sure—no boyos, hold off for just a wee bit and we’ll see if we can’t untie this widdout we all get burned, especially me. Ye can kill me, Pup; but ye’ll only do it if I actually do damage to yer goods, so to speak. I gotta shoot first, right? It’s what ye call a ‘code of honor’ or something. Now you wouldn’t like that, and I wouldn’t like that, and for sure old Fudir here wouldn’t like that. So let’s try something we can all like. All I’m askin’ ye to do is take one more passenger. That’s all. I mean, by the gods, man! Think of the mess we’d be after layvin’ here for the maintenance crew!”
“I won’t have it be said,” Hugh announced, “that I ran out on my people.”
“Oh, don’t ye worry none about that. When the guard at the gate finally gets hisself untied, he’ll let everyone know it was a shanghai job—by Jack’s Rebels! Man, you’re a legend—and I need that legend—but I don’t need you. Fact is, yez’ve gone soft. Cozyin’ up an’ makin’ dayls wid Handsome Jack an’ all. That ain’t fookin’ right. Yez’re a traitor to the O’Carroll.”