“Then why did she help them escape?”
“What the hell would you do, if you were fresh from Summer and two off worlders burst in on you with guns?” He paced two agitated steps between them. “What in the names of a thousand gods would you think, if you were her? You didn’t hurt her—?”
Jerusha grimaced again, twisted it into a smile. “Ask it the other way around.” She wondered with more interest why he was trying to protect the girl. His mistress?
“You said they all escaped?”
Gundhalinu laughed sourly. “For a man who doesn’t know anything, you’re damned concerned about what happened tonight.”
Ngenet ignored him, waiting.
“They all escaped. Their craft cleared Tiamat space without damage.” Jerusha saw the expression on his face turn into something that was not relief.
“All? You mean she went with them?” The words came out as though each one was alien on his tongue.
“That’s right.” She nodded, tightening her good hand over her other elbow, pinching off the nerve paths. “They took her off. You mean to tell me she really was an innocent bystander, a local?”
Ngenet turned away, struck the frost-rimed windshield of the hovercraft with a gloved fist. “My fault—”
“And mine. If we’d held onto them she would have been all right.” And that’s what happens when you start trying to change the rules.
“What was she to you, Citizen Ngenet?” Gundhalinu asked. “More than a passing stranger.” Not a question.
“She’s a sibyl.” He looked back at them. “It doesn’t matter if you know that now.”
Jerusha raised her eyebrows. “A sibyl?” The wind off the bay clutched her in icy talons. “Why — would that make a difference to us?”
“Come now, Inspector.” His voice turned bitter, like the wind.
“We’re law officers. We enforce the law” — liar—”and the law protects sibyls, even on Tiamat.”
“Like it protects the mers? Like it protects this world from progress?”
She saw Gundhalinu stiffen like a hunter scenting his prey. “How long have you been living in the outback, Citizen Ngenet?”
“All my life,” with a kind of pride. “And my father before me, and his father… This is my homeworld.”
“And you don’t like the way we’re running it?” Gundhalinu made it a challenge.
“Damn right I don’t! You try to choke the life out of this world’s future, you let a maggot like Starbuck wipe his boots on you while he slaughters innocent beings for the gratification of a few filthy-rich bastards who want to live forever. You make a mockery of ‘law’ and ‘justice’—”
“And so do you, Citizen.” Gundhalinu stepped forward; Jerusha could see everything that had locked into place inside his head. “Inspector, it seems likely to me that this man is involved in more serious criminal activities than just smuggling. I think we ought to take him back to the city—”
“And charge him with what? Behaving like an arrogant fool?” She shook her head. “We have no evidence that would justify that.”
“But he—” Gundhalinu gestured, accidentally struck her arm.
“Damn it, Sergeant, I said we’re letting him go!” She lost his startled face in a burst of pain stars Blinking, she refocused on Ngenet instead. “But that doesn’t mean I’m letting you off completely, Ngenet. Your presence here and your attitude are questionable enough to warrant my revoking your permit to operate this hovercraft. I’m impounding it. We’re taking it back to the city.” A trickle of perspiration crept down the side of her face, burning cold.
“You can’t do that!” Ngenet straightened away from the hovercraft’s door, towering over her. “I’m a citizen of the Hegemony—”
“And required to obey me.” She lifted her head to glare back at him. “You’re a citizen of Tiamat, by your own choice. If that’s what you want, then you can live like one.”
“How am I supposed to run my plantation?”
“Just like any other Winter. Use a ship, deal with traders. You’ll get along fine, if that’s all you really need it for… Or would you rather take the trip to Carbuncle with us, and have your plantation electronically searched for contraband?” She watched him struggle against speech, and was gratified.
“All right. Take the vehicle. Just let me get my things.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
He looked back at her.
“I’ll drop you off at your plantation before I take the craft to Carbuncle… BZ, you’ll pilot the patroller home.”
Gundhalinu nodded; she saw some of his disappointment shaken loose in the motion. “You want me to tandem you, Inspector?”
“No. I don’t think Citizen Ngenet is going to do anything stupid. He doesn’t strike me as a stupid man.”
Ngenet made a sound that was not really a laugh.
“We might as well get started.” She bent her head grimly at the patrol craft It’s going to be a long trip.
“Yes, ma’am. See you in Carbuncle, Inspector.” Gundhalinu saluted and walked away.
She watched him get into the patrol craft watched it rise from the stone terrace of the quay. The sky was clouding over again; she shivered more violently. At least Carbuncle has central heating… suddenly longing for the touch of a warm wind fragrant with sillipha, the endless summer afternoon of her childhood on Newhaven. “Well, Citizen Ngenet—”
Ngenet reached out, his hand closed gently but firmly over her aching arm. She gasped, stiffening with surprise and sudden alarm.
“Ah,” as he held up his other hand in a cautionary gesture. He let her go. “I just wanted to be sure. The Summer girl hurt you, Inspector. Maybe you better let me see how badly.”
“It’s nothing. Get in.” She looked away from him, jaw tight.
He shrugged. “Feel free to be a martyr if you like. But it doesn’t impress me. As you say, I’m not a stupid man.”
She looked back. “I prefer to wait until I can see a medic at the star port
“I am a qualified medic.” He turned, pressed his hand against a seal on the side of the hovercraft. A storage compartment opened, but in the poor light she could not see what was inside. He removed a dark satchel, set it on the ground and pulled it open. “Of course,” he glanced up with a sardonic smile, “you’d probably consider me to be a vet. But the diagnostic tools are the same.”
She frowned slightly, not understanding, but let him take her hand and run the scanner along her arm.
“Hm.” He released her hand again. “Fractured radius. I’ll splint it temporarily, and give you something for the pain.”
She stood silently while he tightened and sealed the rigid tube of the splint around her arm. He pressed a small, spongy pad into the palm of her ungloved hand; she felt blissful nothingness begin to extinguish the fires up her arm, and sighed. “Thank you.” She watched him put the bag away, wondered suddenly whether he saw her as a gullible female. “You know this isn’t going to change my mind about anything, Ngenet.”
He reseated the compartment, said brusquely. “I didn’t expect it to. I was indirectly responsible for your getting hurt; I don’t like that. Besides” — he faced her again—”I expect I owe you something.”
“What do you mean?”
“For offering me a choice of the lesser of two evils. If that overeager sergeant of yours had his way, I expect I’d end up a deportee.”
She smiled faintly. “Not if you have nothing to hide.”
“Who among us really has nothing to hide, Inspector PalaThion?” He unsealed the hovercraft’s door, watching her with a faint smile of his own. “Do you?”
She circled the craft, waited until he unlatched the far door and settled in carefully. “You’ll be the last to know, Ngenet, either way.” She fastened the straps one-handed.