“SurTac Duncan,” the page said for the second time. “You are wanted at the lock.” The aircraft was waiting. It could wait. Duncan pressed a com button at a panel and leaned toward it. “Duncan here. Advise them I’m coming in a few minutes.”
He walked then, as he had been granted Luiz’ free permission to do, into the guarded section of the infirmary, no longer there by a bending of regulations, but bearing a red badge that passed him to all areas of the ship but those on voice-lock. It was satisfying to see the difference in security’s reaction to him, the quickness with which doors were opened to him.
And when he had come into Niun’s room, the guard outside turned his back, a privacy which he had not often enjoyed.
He touched the mri, bent and called his name, wishing for the latest time he had had other options. He had obtained a position of some power again; had recovered favor where it mattered; had fought with every deviousness he knew; but when he looked at the mri’s thin, naked face, it felt not at all like triumph.
He wished that they would allow Niun covering for his face; the mri lived behind veils, a modest, proud people. After some days with him, Niun had finally felt easy enough in his presence to show him his face, and to speak to him directly, as a man to a man of like calling.
There is no other way for us, Niun had told him, refusing offered help, at a time when the mri had had the power to choose for himself. We either survive as we were, or we have failed to survive. We are mri; and that is more than the name of a species, Duncan. It is an old, old way. It is our way. And we will not change.
There were fewer and fewer options for them.
Only a friend, Duncan thought bitterly, could betray them with such thoroughness. He had determined they would survive: their freedom would cost something else again; and that, too, he prepared to buy, another betrayal… things that the mri regarded as holy. In such coin he bought the cooperation of the likes of Boaz and Luiz; and wondered finally for whose sake he acted, whether Niun could even comprehend his reasoning, or whether it was only selfishness that drove him.
“Niun,” he urged him, wishing for some touch of recognition, some reassurance for what he was doing. But Niun was far under this noon: there was no reaction to his name or to the touch on his arm.
He could not delay longer. He drew back, still hoping. There was nothing.
He had not expected a pilot: he had looked to fly himself. But when he climbed aboard he found the controls occupied by a sandy-haired man who bore Saber’s designation of his sleeve. GALEY, the pocket patch said, LT.
“Sorry about the delay,” Duncan said, for the air was hot, noon-heated. “Didn’t know I wasn’t solo on this one.”
Galey fired up, shrugged as the engines throbbed into life. “No matter. It’s hot here, hot down there at the water plant on repair detail, too. I’d rather the ship, thanks.”
Duncan settled into the copilot’s place, adjusted his gear, the equipment that Boaz had provided, into the space between his feet, and fastened the belts. The ship lifted at an angle, swung off into ‘an immediate sharp turn toward the hills. Cold air flooded them now that they were airborne, delicious luxury after the oven-heat of the aircraft on the ground.
“Do you know where we’re going?” he asked of Galey.
“I know the route. I flew you out of there.”
Duncan gave him a second look, trying to remember him, and could not. It had been dark, a time too full of other concerns. He blinked, realizing Galey had said something else to him, that he had been drifting.
“Sorry,” he said. “You asked something?”
Galey shrugged again. “No matter. No matter. HowM the kel’ein make out? Still alive, I hear.”
“Alive, yes.”
“This place we’re going have something to do with them?”
“Yes.”
“Dangerous?”
“I don’t know,” he said, considering that for the first time. “Maybe.”