The shockwave of the explosion hit them, the hovercraft shuddered and bucked, dumping Ananke on his butt. Kedalion used voice and hands to reintegrate their stabilizers and speed with desperate efficiency. He looked up and out again—saw one of their pursuers glide forward into visual range, pacing them easily as he pushed the hovercraft’s speed to its limit, racing fate toward a destination that had suddenly ceased to have any meaning. He looked down at the specs reading out now on the screen in front of him. Each of the pursuit craft around them was a flying armory.
“Reede Kullervo!” The voice burst out of the comm, through the linkage of Kedalion’s headset, making him wince.
Reede jerked as if he had been shocked. Kedalion saw expression come back into his face. “I’m here,” Reede said, his voice toneless with barely controlled rage. “Who did this, you shit-eating cowards?”
“We are talcing control of your craft’s operating systems,” the voice said, as if it hadn’t heard him. “Tell your pilot to activate override sequence.”
Kedalion glanced at Reede. Reede said nothing.
“We are armed. Activate override or we will shoot you down.”
“Copy. Activating override sequence,” Kedalion said, when Reede still did not answer. Maybe Reede figured this was as good a day to die as any … he ususally did. But Kedalion Niburu at least wanted to know who wanted him dead before he took a direct hit.
Reede’s expression was like the edge of a blade; but he made no move to stop anything as Kedalion let their escort take over the ship’s controls. Kedalion lifted his hands from the board in a shrug of resignation, watching data shift as they changed direction and speed. Ananke was on his feet again, peering over Kedalion’s shoulder in stricken silence as they flew on over the thorn forests, the blasted citadel and the raging wildfire falling away behind them like the past.
There was no more radio contact from their escort; they flew on in helpless silence. Ananke didn’t ask again what had happened. Kedalion decided that either he’d figured it out for himself, or he didn’t want to know. He sat down again in the back, stroking the quoll, staring out at the rearward view until there was nothing left to see.
Kedalion tried a few queries of the boards, the databanks. Nothing at all had been left under his control. He couldn’t even change the time on the clock. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the panel; shoved his hand into his pocket. His fingers closed over the huskball. He pulled it out, rolling it from hand to hand, comforted by the motion and its shabby familiarity.
“Can you get a fix on where we’re going?” Reede asked.
Kedalion looked up, and shook his head. “Can’t get a damn thing out of the banks. And it doesn’t look like we’re flying a straight course. Reede—”
“Shut up,” Reede said. “Shut up, Niburu.”
Kedalion shut up.
After about two hour’s flight time he began to see the spine of another tower gleaming like a needle in the late morning sun. He wanted to ask whose citadel it was, but he didn’t. If Reede knew, he didn’t bother to share the information. A port blossomed in the fortress wall as they approached. Kedalion felt the invisible hand of a docking beam close over their craft, sucking them unerringly, inescapably into its waiting mouth.
Guards were waiting too, as they settled into a dock with a stomach-dropping lurch. Kedalion saw them peering in warily through the dome. The doors popped without his asking: an invitation.
“Let’s not keep them waiting …” Reede said. His voice was full of broken glass. He got to his feet, flexing his fingers like a man with a cramp; Kedalion was relieved to see that he made no move toward any of the weapons he carried.
“What about—?” Kedalion jerked his head at the rear of the craft, where the container of stardrive plasma lay concealed under the seats.
Reede shook his head, with a leave it gesture. He stepped outside.
Kedalion followed, reluctantly, glancing back at Ananke. Ananke was looking at the quoll, looking around, as if he was trying to decide whether his pet would be safer with him, or without him. “Bring it,” Kedalion said softly. “The gods only know if we’ll ever even see this again—” He gestured at the hovercraft.
Ananke nodded, tightlipped, and went ahead of him out the door.
Guards moved in on them, searching them by hand and with detectors, with rough efficiency. They had already relieved Reede of an assortment of weapons Kedalion noticed that Reede’s solii pendant—the one he always wore, the one Kedalion had seen once on half a dozen ill-met strangers in a bizarre back-alley meeting—was dangling free. The solii’s shimmering, hypnotic light looked strikingly out of place against Reede’s nondescript gray coveralls. For once he made no effort to conceal it, wearing it with an almost defiant insouciance. The guards watched him the way they would watch a wild beast, as if his reputation had preceded him Kedalion felt surprise, and then a wary relief, as he realized they were making no move to put binders on anyone.
Someone entered the docking bay, coming toward them, moving with a ruthless confidence that said he carried some power. The guards looked up at him, and moved out of his path. They were the usual mix of on-and offworlders, wearing the same pragmatic assortment of clothing that Kedalion saw all the time in the streets of Humbaba’s headquarters. The man coming toward them now was no more formally dressed. There was no way to guess who any of them worked for, nothing but the new arrival’s manner told Kedalion that he was in charge. He was close to two meters tall, and heavily muscled. Dark curly hair, dark upslanting eyes … Kedalion figured he was Newhavenese.
He stopped in front of them, looking Reede over while a smile pulled up the bum-scarred corner of his mouth. “Well, Reede Kullervo. Glad you made it.” He held out a hand.
Reede wiped his own hands on his pantslegs in response, his eyes glittering “You’re not the Man,” he said. “And you’re not glad to see me.” Kedalion couldn’t tell whether Reede actually knew the Newhavener or not.
“I heard you were smart,” the big man said, with the same sour smile. He let his hand drop. “Fucking brilliant, in fact. I guess that’s why the Man wants to see you about a job.”
Reede gave a bark of sardonic laughter. “He wants to work for me?”
Head shake. “He heard you lost your patron. Dangerous, being who you are, and without a patron.”
“He maybe have something to do with that?” Reede said.
“Yeah. Maybe.” The Newhavener’s grin widened maliciously. “You’ve been offworld a long time, Kullervo. That’s dangerous too. Things change.”
Kedalion sensed more than saw Reede’s breathing become quick and shallow. “Whose cartel is this? Where am I?” he asked, and Kedalion knew it had cost him to ask that.
The big man’s expression got uglier. “You’ll see,” he said. “You’re gonna love it here, Kullervo.”
“Okay,” Reede murmured, his voice rasping. “The Man wants to see me, where is he—?”
“Follow me.” The Newhavener turned and started back the way he had come, his boot heels ringing on the catwalk. They followed him, six guards moving with them like their own shadow. Kedalion resisted the urge to look back, at the hovercraft, at the priceless cargo still hidden beneath the back seat, lying in a bucket like yesterday’s lunch; at his last glimpse of the open air, and freedom, maybe forever.
The Newhavener took them for the three-credit tour, transporting them deep into the citadel’s city-size entrails by ways and means that were guaranteed to ensure they’d never find their way back out again alone. They stepped out of a final dizzying lift ride, into an airy, open space that made Kedalion blink with surprise. One wall let in actual daylight … or maybe it was a holo, he couldn’t be sure. If it was genuine, they were high up in the air, though he’d been sure they were working their way downward.