There was a scream. The shooting paused, then redoubled. A slug ricocheted from the cube.

  There was another scream. This time a soldier staggered backward and fell over the sapling Rick and I had moved just before we stopped work. The man’s belly had been cut open and a coil of pinkish intestine stretched back into the brush where he’d been standing.

  Three soldiers ran past where I lay, focused on the remaining Shining aircar. One of them dropped his carbine.

  The hydrogen in the first vehicle had burned out, but the plastic and fabric of the interior continued to smolder. The second truck wobbled as the driver ran up his fans. More soldiers were trying to pile aboard. I wondered whether this or the other vehicle was the one that had bent a fan blade while landing.

  The truck pulled farther inland, gaining height. The driver was looking for a place to turn around and reach the watercourse before he tried to punch through the canopy.

  I heard the bang, muted by intervening forest. I didn’t see the vehicle until a moment later as it plunged to the ground. I heard but couldn’t see the crash itself.

  I rolled off Doctor Veil’s slight body. “Sorry, ma’am,” I said.

  “Thank you, Harper,” she said, rolling onto all fours. “Thank you very much.”

  Rick had also gotten up. He grabbed a carbine, then handed me another. “Never a dull moment,” he muttered. “Say, was that Shining bigwig in the first truck that blew up?”

  Kent, Weems, and Willis were coming toward us from the back of the mound. Willis was limping.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, “but I’m not sure of what happened.”

  Rick said, “Kent, does our car work?”

  “It ought to, El-Tee,” Kent said.

  Rick’s scalp was bloody. He dabbed it with his fingertips. He said, “Then let’s get ourselves back to some medicomps. Since at least I need one!”

  * * *

  When Pretsuma’s vehicle landed, it had knocked over quite a mass of vine-bound saplings like those we’d been clearing from on top of and around the cube. Some of the undergrowth had been knocked over onto our truck.

  Doctor Veil stopped in her tracks when she saw the pile, but Rick turned and called, “Willis, Weems? Good thing you haven’t put away your saws yet. Let’s get going so we can get home!”

  The two spacers headed for the tangle of brush. Rick started to join them but staggered. I put my right hand on his shoulder and said, “Rick, I think we can leave this to people who haven’t been hit on the head recently.”

  I’d had a stint in the medicomp when I got back from hunting with Platt. That had allowed me to work on clearing the cube, but either the drugs had worn off or I was simply exhausted. I’d have joined Rick in doing more heavy clearance work if he’d gone, but I sure hoped we could leave it to the common spacers now.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” said Rick, relaxing. Weems and Willis were probably tired too, but they hadn’t been injured recently. Weems, an ox of a man, with a flaring red moustache, turned. He called, “El-Tee? There’s guns here. What you want us to do with them?”

  Rick paused and glanced at me. From behind us, Joss said, “Leave ’em. Atti—he’s the native you met, Lord Harper—is putting together a new tribe and they’ll come in handy.”

  “Leave the guns for the natives,” Rick called to Weems. Then he said quietly to Joss, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  Joss shrugged. “Atti was helping us,” she said. “I don’t think he could hit anything with a gun that wasn’t in knife range, but he can get that close.”

  Rick shrugged. “They’re not our guns,” he said.

  “If it makes civilized Otkans think a little before they fly into the jungle to kill mothers and babies…,” I said. “Then I’m in favor of it.”

  Rick smiled wryly. “I guess I can go along with that,” he said. “Say Joss? How did you get the aircars to blow up like that?”

  Joss smiled also. I guess I was getting used to it because the expression no longer struck me as horrible. “The Shinings had grenades,” she said. “And if you know what you’re doing, you can set a grenade inside an oleo strut so that when the weight comes off and the strut extends, the fuse ignites.”

  She looked at me. “How did you make the high muckimuck vanish, sir? I was moving around for a shot but then Zip! and he was gone.”

  Before I could speak—saying that I hadn’t done it—Doctor Veil said, “Lord Harper explained to Master Pretsuma that the Archaics placed traps which long outlived them. What I thought was a key was actually the trigger—inserting it armed the trap. When an animal of the correct size entered the target zone, it would respond.”

  Joss frowned and said, “But it couldn’t be armed, then. It’d catch whoever tried.”

  “I assume there was a safety to prevent it from working on the Archaics themselves,” Doctor Veil said. “As I warned Master Pretsuma, the Archaics were not of our species.”

  She rubbed her cheek and smiled. “I’m glad that he chose to test the device instead of leaving it for me to do, as I’d intended.”

  The truck’s fans revved and the vehicle lifted slightly before settling back. Weems stood in the open back of the vehicle and shouted, “We’re ready to load any time you are!”

  “We’re ready now!” I called back.

  * * *

  I was sitting in the back with Rick, Joss, and the spacers, leaving Doctor Veil alone in the cab with Kent. I’d felt really trapped when Veil stayed seated after our arrival in the forest this morning.

  I suppose I could’ve asked her to take the middle seat, but she was my superior and preferred the outer place. There was plenty of space in back for five people, but the saws were recharging in the middle of the floor so foot room was obstructed.

  Rick had slid the sides up so we could look out as we cruised back to Ssu-Lung, but I basically looked at my hands on my knees. I was physically tired but my real exhaustion was mental. There were spatters of blood on my left sleeve, I suppose from the Shining who’d been holding my arm when Joss blew his brains out. I hadn’t been at risk from that shot, but it drove home to me what had just gone on.

  “Hey!” said Rick, looking out to the side. “That’s an RCN courier ship! What the hell is it doing here?”

  We were curving in over the harbor to reach the transport bay on the starboard side. There was a largish ship docked near the Far Traveller. It looked odd but I wasn’t familiar enough with ships to know why.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said. We were losing height; the new ship was hidden behind our own.

  “It started out as a light cruiser, like the Fart,” Rick said, “but they took out hull sections, razed it, and left the original sparring. I’ve never heard of one where all the pipes and ducting worked right, but they’re hell for fast when you need to move orders or high officers.”

  “They’re meeting us in the transport hold!” Kent shouted through the window from the cab. He’d been on the radio but all I’d made out was the crackle of conversation. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right this time either.

  “Who’s meeting us, d’ye suppose?” Rick said. Neither of us tried to distract Kent while he was pulling into the transport hold.

  We turned in the entrance aisle and landed in our usual place. Six or eight people, most of them in uniform, had been packed into the office. They rushed toward us when Kent shut the fans down.

  Willis banged the tailgate open. Rick gestured me out. “I don’t think they’re waiting for me,” he said.

  There was no reason for them to be waiting for me either, but I hopped down. I didn’t recognize the three officers in RCN dress uniforms—they weren’t members of our crew—but the civilian woman in her sixties was Mistress Klausen, Uncle Ted’s personal aide for as long as I could remember.

  Captain Bolton in a second class uniform greeted me first, but he immediately turned to Doctor Veil. “Mistress?” he said, shouting over the echoes of the bay. “May we gather in your lab? It’s the nearest large quiet space?”

  I didn’t hear her reply, though I’m not sure it would have made a difference. Guided by Mahaffy, we wound our way through the corridors to the biology lab. I really wanted to shower and sleep, but that would wait until this was taken care of. Whatever this was.

  When Kent closed the hatch behind us, it became reasonably quiet. I suppose I should’ve waited for one of the officers to say something, but I turned to Mistress Klausen and said, “Debra? Is Uncle Ted all right?”

  Klausen’s smile was no warmer than usual—Uncle Ted didn’t keep her around for her nurturing qualities—but it was real. “Harper of Forwood is very well indeed, Lord Harry. He has been chosen as minister of commerce in the new government, and he wants you as his chief of staff. He sent me to fetch you.”

  “I don’t know a bloody thing about commerce!” I said. I didn’t bother saying that I didn’t want to learn about commerce either: this was family, and my personal preferences didn’t count.

  “You’ll have a staff,” Klausen said. “Your uncle needs someone smart and able to think on his feet to run them. He’s read Captain Bolton’s reports and was greatly impressed. And of course he’s known you all your life and he trusts you.”

  “What reports?” I said, looking from Debra to the captain.

  “You saved the Republic from embarrassment,” Captain Bolton said, “and you may have saved my career as well when you rescued Lieutenant Grenville on Mindoro without public incident. It was a pleasure as well as my duty to cite you for an award.”

  “I believe your uncle mentioned ‘ruthlessness’ as another reason for picking you,” Klausen said. “I believe the words he used were, ‘a true Harper.’”

  I was processing what I’d just heard. Captain Bolton said, “I should mention that Doctor Veil proved her value to the RCN when she brought Lord Harper aboard the Far Traveller. In recognition of that service, I am granting her an in-service commission as a lieutenant in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy.”

  He turned toward Doctor Veil, smiled, and added, “You’ll be eating with the officers from now on, Professor.”

  Bloody hell.

  “The Signal is waiting to lift off now, sir,” said one of the officers I hadn’t seen before.

  I said, “I’ll need time to move my luggage. And I’d really like to take a shower.”

  “I shifted your gear while you were gone, El-Tee,” Mahaffy said. “And let me tell you, that wasn’t half a job.”

  “Welcome aboard the Signal, Lord Harper,” said the officer who’d spoken before. “I’m Becarra, her captain. I can assure you that the hot water is still connected in the passenger suite.”

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t have time to say the things I’m thinking.” I said, “but if I prove fit for this new position, it’s because of what I’ve learned in the RCN.”

  I looked around the room and added, “Not least what I’ve learned from Technician Joss, who doesn’t seem to be here. She avoids crowds and strangers. I hope she will continue to flourish on the Far Traveller.”

  I bent my head and wiped my eyes with the back of my right hand. “One more thing,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t choke before I got the words out. “I would appreciate it if Lieutenant Grenville would walk me aboard the Signal. He understands naval matters far better than I do.”

  “Get him aboard, Grenville,” Captain Bolton said. “I’m sure Captain Becarra will wait until Lord Harper has dismissed you.”

  We went out into the transportation bay, a lifetime after I had first entered by it.

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  Table of Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  QUAN LOI

  MEDLUM

  ELKIN

  MINDORO

  ZEMLYN’S WORLD

  MEDLUM

  OTKO

 

 

  David Drake, To Clear Away the Shadows

 

 

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