Rebel Princess(6)

Leave here and you're dead.

So here she remained with three well-armed servants, who brought her  meals and saw that she was shut up in the Archives when the cleaning  crew came in once a week. She had the library, books-paper and  electronic-and her portapad's connection to the outside world. Whatever  had inspired Tal Rigel to choose this place, it was a very special  prison.

But Olin Lusk was an irritant in her serene little world. Kass reminded  herself that, according to legend, irritants in oysters produced pearls,  but she doubted Lusk was going to produce anything but shivers down her  spine. She'd often wished that someone besides Cort Baran would talk to  her, but now she realized talk had its downside. Lusk's attempts to  chat her up had palled his first day on the job. He talked too much, got  too close. A time or two he'd even touched her-a hand to her arm, on  her shoulder. Compared to many Psyclids, Kass's empathic gifts weren't  strong, but Olin Lusk made her hair stand on end. She should complain to  Cort, but what could she say? That the new guard was overly friendly  when she'd been happily chatting with Cort Baran for years?

Lusk had been on the job for eight days now. Kass tried to avoid his  gaze when he set her evening meal on the table, but his hot dark eyes  demanded her attention. She could actually feel sexual heat radiating  from every pore. She grabbed her tray and slipped by him. Afraid that  running would propel him into a chase, Kass kept a steady pace as she  crossed the storage room to the doors to the Archives. She juggled the  food, tapped in the code for the first door, then for the vault. Her  hand shook as she punched the button to close both doors behind her.         

     



 

As she placed her tray on the cubicle's shelf next to the comp unit,  Kass spoke sharply to her nerves. Her training as a Regulon Fleet  officer had been only a few months short of completion. She was of the  Psyclid House of Orlondami, trained from birth to handle crises. She  could survive a guard with rape on his mind. Now that she no longer had  any doubts about Lusk's intentions, she would simply stay here all  night, and in the morning she'd tell Cort, and that would be that. She'd  never see Olin Lusk again.

Kass settled down to her meal. After all, it wasn't the first time she'd  eaten in her cubicle. Cort often delivered her lunch to the Archives-

Dimi! Kass nearly choked on a bite of atalan, one of Regulon's finer fish. Did the other guards know the codes for the Archives?

She could hide in the stacks. They went on forever. It might be a nasty  night, playing tag among rows of books twice the height of a man, but  she could do it. She would have to.

Or . . . if the goddess smiled on her, perhaps Lusk had remembered what  an easy job he had. Reason had prevailed, and he was sitting in his  chair by the door to the outer corridor, frustrated but resigned.

Alert to the slightest sound of doors opening, Kass forced herself to  continue her meal. Dessert was a white pudding that made her long for  the fluffy confections served at home. But, as she frequently reminded  herself, for prison food her meals were luxurious. Thanks to whatever  mysterious benefactor oversaw her captivity.

Kass lowered her tray to the floor and stared at the large comp unit  that connected her to the knowledge of the known universe. Not tonight.  She couldn't settle to study. Maybe music? The electronic archives  offered the very best, even Psyclidian folk music, from chants and  rituals to haunting love songs.

No! She couldn't bear it. If that miserable son of a Mizarian maw-worm  hadn't gotten himself killed, he'd have come back for her by now. She  wouldn't be sitting here, ears on the prick for the whoosh of the  fan-louvers gliding apart and Olin Lusk walking through.

She was supposed to be safe here, not poised to run like some lowly street felon.

No. She wouldn't do it. Running was for creatures of the night, not for  those with the power to defend themselves. She'd grown soft during these  years of captivity or she never would have considered it. Playing tag  among the stacks? Ridiculous. She was Cadet Kass Kiolani and she'd stand  and fight. It wasn't as if Lusk could possibly win. She had a million  weapons at her disposal.

A soft whoosh as the vault door's louvered fans retracted.

Kass stood and walked to the cubicle entrance. Anticipation curled her  lips into a warrior's smile. Revenge on the Regulons at last, however  small the scale.

"I killed him." Kass sat slumped in her chair, eyes down, as Cort Baran entered her room the next morning.

Without so much as the blink of an eye, he placed her breakfast tray on  the table. "Why the long face, Kiolani? You swat a kito?"

"You could say that." Kass looked up. "Didn't you notice something missing when you came in this morning?"

"Figured Lusk was in the sani-" A frown creased Baran's customarily pleasant face. "Kass, my girl, what are you saying?"

"Look in the Archives. Go now. You'll see what I mean."

Less than five minutes later, Cort was back. He paused in the doorway to  Kass's room. Their eyes met. "Are you saying he's under all that?" he  whispered. Kass nodded. "How do you know he's dead?"

"I feel it. His spirit is gone."

Cort Baran heaved a deep sigh. "Better tell me how it happened."

"He tried to rape me, I killed him."

"By burying him under a thousand books?"

"They were the only weapons I had."

Baran shook his head. "This is trouble, Kiolani. Year in, year out, we  go on smooth as glass. Even after the rebellion started, nothing  changed. But this . . ."

"I know, I know," Kass murmured. Dear goddess, she'd killed a man. "But I  am Fleet as well as Psyclid. I defended myself." She raised her head,  chin high. "I am sorry for causing trouble, but I absolutely refuse to  be sorry for Lusk."

Baran crossed his arms over his broad chest, his round face as solemn as  she'd ever seen it. "I have to tell you, Kiolani, I don't know what's  going to happen. Whoever's running this place may be more concerned  about damage to the books than what happened to Lusk. And . . . there're  those who are going to want to know how in the nine black hells of  Obsidias you did it."

Kass hung her head. "I just thought to hit him with a few books, chase  him away, but he kept on coming. He was twice my size. For all my  training, he had me down in less than a minute. So I staggered him with a  dictionary to the head, broke away and ran for it. The books just kept  coming. I lost it, I couldn't stop."         

     



 

Horrified at her indiscretion, Kass broke off. "It must have been a  domino effect," she added tonelessly. "You know how it is when the  adrenaline flows. I was so terrified, I must have been able to shove one  of the bookracks over, and the others toppled of their own accord."

Eyes wide, Cort Baran was looking a little green. He didn't believe her.  Of course he didn't believe her. Malfunctioning trajectories. Tal Rigel  hadn't believed her either.

Baran visibly gathered himself together, moving into stern parent mode.  "There is no fixing this, Kiolani. I am sincerely sorry Lusk slipped  through our screening, but his death may bring the world down on our  heads. We can get rid of his body, but it will take a small army to  restore the books. Stay in your room. Lock the door, open only to me.  And pray to your goddess. As I will to Omnovah."

As the door closed behind him, Kass propped her chin in her hands,  gazing sightlessly at the thick blue carpet that covered the faustone  floor. Tears came at last. She wept for her own stupidity, for Tal  Rigel, for Psyclid. For all the might-have-beens.

Finally, reason sneaked through, reminding her the Academy had trained  her to kill, and no amount of tears would reverse time. She had killed  Olin Lusk with a torrent of books. Tal Rigel was dead. Regulon boots  trampled Psyclid soil.

Kass raised her watery eyes to the tri-photo on the wall. Psyclid's Blue  Moon rising over the Azulian Sea. How could she have been so young and  foolish, leaving the beauty of Psyclid behind? The even tenor of Psyclid  days. The tolerance. The intellectual stimulation. The love of family  and friends. Yet she'd turned her back on her country, yearning for  something more.

She'd found it. And watched her dreams turned to cosmic dust.

Now she was about to be torn from her cozy nest and thrust under the  frenzied gaze of scientists who would demand to know how she'd done it.

Or would she be slated for execution? Sub rosa, of course. Mustn't let  anyone know the rumors about Psyclids were true. Mustn't let anyone know  a Psyclid had been hidden for four years in the Interplanetary  Archives.

If she had the choice of doing it over . . . she'd kill the son of an Altairian bottom-feeder all over again.

By the official calendar of Regula Prime

Eight days later

Cort Baran's round face and gray eyes remained gloomy as an army of  workers came and went-too many to assume that word wouldn't get out.  Kass never left her room. Meals arrived only when workers weren't  present. She was losing weight. At least she had her portapad and could  follow the public speculation. "Earthquake Hits Archives. Security Guard  Killed." But that was the best of the headlines. Rumors were rampant,  including talk of Psyclid taking revenge by interfering with the laws of  nature. A suggestion that met with sarcasm from many. After all, if  Psyclids could disrupt the laws of nature, why choose the Interplanetary  Archives?