“That bad luck too,” Skilly said. “You don’ tell me that Prince Baby is up there. Everything fine until he rallies the troops, make them go back to their holes and organize. That Prince one real piece of bad luck. Best we kill that one. Him and that whole group of his. He put a price on my head, I put one on his. You kill him, now.”
“Ah, I was under the impression that you were thoroughly aware that Prince Lysander had gone north. My mistake. As to his demise, this is not so easily accomplished as it would have been earlier,” Murasaki said. “The Royals are, after all, very much alerted.”
“They still meet sometimes,” Skilly said. “Report to the Senate. Broadcast to the people.” She looked around, but Geoffrey Niles had never opened his eyes fully, and she saw him apparently still asleep. Her voice fell even lower, so that Geoff didn’t hear all of what she said next.
” . . . whole damn place while they in it.”
“There are few reliable ways to accomplish that.”
“One sure one.”
“I had thought you were opposed to using that.”
“Skilly not like it, because it cause trouble for the future. But right now, maybe she don’t got a future unless something drastic happens.”
“That is of course most unfortunate,” Murasaki said. “But I have only the one device, and there is some question of where to use it. Indeed, you have been persuasive in arguing against using it at all. Certainly it will greatly upset the CoDominium elements, and it is never wise to do that without powerful reasons.”
“Yeah, I understand that,” Skilly said. “But think, you don’ do something soon, Skilly facing the ugly, ugly jaws of defeat.”
“No one understands that better than me,” the soft voice said. “But we have sent you vast resources, and I fear we have very little to show for all that huge expenditure. We have embarrassed the Legion, but it seems to have survived the experience, perhaps did not even notice. The Royal Government is stronger than ever. I regret I must point this out, but you do not seem to have much to offer now. Have you established control over the politicals in Sparta City?”
“Yes.”
Geoff suppressed a shudder. Regaining control of the political apparatus after the mass arrests following the Ultimate Decree had been a nightmare. There had to be secure cutouts, discontinuities in the command structure, or the entire apparatus would have fallen in the first hours; but once the known leaders were removed, making contact with those remaining was extremely difficult, and proving that you were entitled to give them orders, and that they should continue the fight, was more difficult still. Niles’s admiration for Skilly had increased enormously but his horror at her methods had grown equally. Her energy was boundless, and she had set up a number of contingency plans just in case this happened. She was particularly skilled at blackmail, and she had enough evidence to hang most of the political leadership three times over. And one of those who had refused to take her in was found the next day with his testicles stuffed into his eye sockets.
So we have control of the politicals. It takes a lot of personal contact to do it, and we can’t do that easily because Skilly insists on moving from place to place all the time. Afraid someone will try to collect the bounty, I suppose. I wonder how long she’ll stay here? Its safe here, but she’s not getting much done.
“You blow de Palace when the government is all there,” Skilly said. “Give Skilly a week warning, hell, six hours, and it’ll be all over, Skilly will own this place. No Kings, no Senate, no government. Just the organization.”
“Well, it is a possibility to consider,” Murasaki said. “But I think we first stay with the original plan. Let us see what that will accomplish before we attempt your way. If that fails, perhaps there is another.”
“You just be sure to give Skilly notice first. Those politicals not so easy to control, not trained troops. Maybe both together? Between CD and your stuff, we knock out the government, Skilly does the rest. We take over the Capital, we win, and we only got to win once. . . .”
* * *
The girl was about twenty, and she had been pretty in an unsophisticated way. Now her hair had been cut off with a bayonet, her swollen lips oozed blood, and she was missing at least one tooth. The nose was swollen as well, probably broken, one eye was black, and there were other bruises, particularly on her thighs. She was sprawled naked across a couch, and one of the Helot soldiers was fastening his trousers.
Geoffrey Niles looked at the scene with distaste. “Seems a bit of a waste,” he said. Soldiers. Warriors. My God. First the Lefkowitz girl, those pictures! Pictures sent to Luna Base and every mercenary outfit registered with the CD, and they still don’t learn, they think they’re going to win and then they can make the rules. Rules! And everyone knows my family is associated with this.
“Waste, Brigade Leader? We’re supposed to kill her, but there wasn’t nothing said about not having some fun first.”
Niles shook his head. “Odd notions of fun. In any event, I need confirmation of some information she probably has. Get her dressed. I’ll bring her back when I’m through.”
“They say she don’t know nothing. The Legion types never told her anything much, she’s no use,” the Company Leader said. He finished fastening his trousers and grinned. “Course it depends on what you want to use her for, but being as what you’re gettin’, you sure don’t need any of this.”
Niles’s look silenced him. “There are things we have to know. People she’s seen, map locations. They weren’t supposed to give her to you until we were finished. Just get her clothes. Can you dress yourself?” he asked the girl.
“Yeah.” Her voice was distorted.
“Then do so.”
She lay still for a moment. The Helot officer smashed his hand across her mouth. “You call him sir, and you do what he says now, bitch.”
She pulled herself into a sitting position with an obvious effort. Niles watched as the girl pulled on trousers and a shirt. She had no underwear, and Niles wondered if it had been destroyed in the process of undressing her. Her only shoes were boots, and he waited for her to get those on. Although she moved slowly and carefully, nothing seemed to be broken. As she finished with her boots, Niles swiftly lifted her to her feet, pulled her hands behind her, and snapped on handcuffs. “Do you want her back?” he asked.
“Well, it might be fun to have her again before we kill her.”
“We’ll see. If she cooperates with us. All right—Talkins, isn’t it? Come along.” He pushed her out into the corridor of the cave.
“Watch her,” the Helot called. “She bites. Or did. Taught her not to do that.”
The passage led to cellars of the farmhouse, but halfway along it was a side passage. Niles opened that door, pushed Margreta Talkins through and followed her, carefully closing it behind him. “All right,” he said. “In a minute I’m going to take those cuffs off, but I want you to be sure you understand what’s happening.”
“And what’s that?” Margreta’s speech was slurred by her swollen lips. She spat blood.
“We’re getting the hell out of here,” Niles said.
Her eyes widened. “We. Why?”
“Look, we don’t have a lot of time,” Niles said. “I want to surrender to the Royals, and I need bargaining chips. You’re one of them. Now we have about an hour, maybe two, before Skilly calls in asking for me, and as long after that as it takes for her to figure out what’s happened. By that time we’d better be a hell of a long way from here. Can you run?”
“A little. I’m pretty bruised. If I’d known I’d have to run, I wouldn’t have fought so hard.”
“Look, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. It could have been worse. All right, I’ll try to keep up. Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but do me this, don’t let them get me alive again, all right? OK, let’s go.”
* * *
“All right, we can stop for a few minutes,” Niles said. “I’ve got some clothes and equipment stashed under the rocks here. We’ll take five minutes to let you change. There are weapons here, too.”
She stumbled forward and sat heavily. “I guess I’m not in as good shape as I thought.”
“How’d they catch you?”
“I think they were always on to me,” Margreta Talkins said. “At least since Graffin Melissa lived through that assassination attempt. They were pretty sure I could have killed her. Ever since I think they’ve just been using me to pass false information back to the Legion. The last thing they did was send me on a wild goose chase, so I’d give the wrong story about where they were hiding. I really thought I’d located Skilly, and getting that information out was worth anything. I guess they’d decided I wasn’t any more use, because that was a setup.”