Rebel Princess(7)

But was anyone going to believe this wise bit of common sense? Kass  wondered. She could almost hear the countdown, her days tick-tocking  into . . . oblivion? Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to hide  the mess she'd made, but the massive, rock-solid edifice of the Regulon  Interplanetary Archives was crumbling around her. The secrecy of her  prison was compromised, her days here numbered.

Maybe honor wasn't all the legends and poets said it was. Maybe she  should have thought of home and country and let Lusk have her. Olin Lusk  in place of her phantom lover, Tal Rigel? Kass's stomach heaved. No,  she hadn't fallen that far. Not yet. Not ever.

Nor was it safe to think of such sickening topics while perched on top  of a ladder three meters high. For the past two days, Cort had allowed  her into the Archives to begin the enormous task of restoring order to  the haphazard shelving done by workers intent only on getting the books  back on the racks. Any rack, any shelf. Three black metal racks, four  meters tall and five meters wide, had toppled onto the Archives'  faustone floor. And onto Olin Lusk. So for Kass, this was penance.  Demanding work, half of it conducted perched at odd angles on a rolling  ladder tall enough for Regulons to reach the upper shelves, but not a  female Psyclid.

She was on the top step, standing on tiptoe, clinging to a shelf with  one hand and reaching for two works on twenty-second century astronomy,  when she heard the whoosh of the fan-vault doors. Lunchtime already?

"Kiolani." Warning and distress in a single word. Kass looked down, her  head whirled. She white-knuckled the ladder, stiffened her noodling  legs. She would not let them see her cringe. It wasn't as if she hadn't  been expecting . . .

No. Deep-down she'd thought Cort wrong. Her mystery guardian would  smooth the ruffled waters, her routine soon settling back to normal. All  would be well.         

     



 

But standing below her were two armed men. Not Fleet, but Imperial  Marines, space-going enforcement officers. Both looked vaguely  familiar-perhaps from the Perseus Club long ago. Marines caught the eye,  after all, their red uniforms, piped in blue, standing out in a room  crowded with Fleet gray.

Slowly, Kass backed down the ladder. When her feet were flat on the  floor, she ignored the marines, turning a questioning look on the one  friend she had left. At least she thought Cort Baran a friend. Maybe  not.

His round face seemed to have crumpled in on itself, aging five years in  five minutes. "Kiolani, I have examined the papers these men have  brought. All seems to be in order. You are being transferred to Fleet  Medical-"

Lab rat. She was going to be a lab rat. Endless experiments. And when  the doctors were finished, having learned nothing, they would take her  brain apart.

I am L'ira Faelle Maedan Orlondami. I will survive.

Right. Big name, little comfort.

"I am sorry, Kiolani," Cort was saying. Poor man, he looked as if he were about to cry.

Once again, Kass called on the formal training, the noblesse oblige,  taught from babyhood. "You have done your job well, Baran. I regret my  actions have brought an end to our time here. I am grateful for your  kindness. May Omnovah bless you and your family." Stepping forward, she  kissed him on the cheek.

Kass turned toward the marines. "Am I allowed to pack?"

"If you do it quickly," said the one wearing the insignia of a lieutenant. The other, she noted, wore sergeant's stripes.

"Goodbye, Baran," Kass murmured to the stricken guard ten minutes later  as the men hustled her out the door, one in front and one behind. The  glare struck hard as a physical blow, blinding her. Four years without  sunlight had taken its toll. The lieutenant grabbed her arm and shoved  her into some kind of vehicle. Kass's vision began to clear as the  shadow shape of the sergeant was climbing in next to the driver.

"Go!" the lieutenant barked. "We're seven minutes behind schedule.  Didn't think the old man would be so suspicious. Took half a day over  those papers"

Old man? Cort Baran? A tight schedule for a simple transfer? Suspicious about what?

Kass gasped as the groundcar shot straight up. Not a groundcar.  Hovercraft. Pok! She'd been too blinded by the sun to see the rotors. A  genuine hovercraft. Very special treatment indeed. Kass had only a  glimpse of the vast red-tiled roof of the Archives building before they  were racing over rooftops, zipping around the tallest buildings, clearly  headed out of town as rapidly as possible.

In spite of the circumstances, Kass stared out the broad windows,  fascinated by her view of the city of Titan from the air. Wondrous. Not  the delicate beauty of buildings on Psyclid, but a panorama of power,  the achievement of a planet bent on demonstrating its supremacy. Towers,  arches, spires, fountains casting rainbows under the late afternoon  sun. The scurry of groundcars on massive roadways, skimmers darting just  overhead, rapid transvans barreling along on the next level up.  Buildings of stark white moonstone and gleaming obsidian, red roofs,  green parks, ornamental lakes . . .

Except . . . something wasn't right. It was afternoon, and the sun was  in the wrong direction. Or the hovercraft was headed in the opposite  direction from Fleet Med, which was only a few kilometers beyond Fleet  HQ. Kass's pulse soared. Goddess, blessed goddess . . . did she dare  hope? Or was she headed toward worse than she'd allowed herself to  imagine? She was in a military hovercraft with two unidentified men. Was  she being taken to a new prison . . . or were they planning to drop her  into the nearest lake?

As the city buildings grew lower, smaller, and farther apart, Kass could  see forest ahead, with a ribbon of road winding through it. The road to  the mountains. So . . . was it to be a rustic cabin prison or drowning  in an icy lake?

No matter how cool she managed to look, her brain was close to overload.This simply wasn't happening.

She had not killed Olin Lusk.

Tal Rigel did not die.

She hadn't spent four years in solitary confinement.

Tal Rigel did not die.

She was not being kidnapped by Imperial Marines.

The sergeant in the front seat had his eyes on a viewscreen and was  giving orders to the pilot. "We've made up the time, sir," he called  over his shoulder to the lieutenant. "Everything looks good below. Shall  I signal, sir?"

"Do it."

Murmured words into a comm unit, and the hovercraft made an abrupt  descent into a modest-size clearing in the woods. Kass blinked as  several men scrambled out of the trees and began an odd dance about  fifty meters ahead. What . . . ?         

     



 

She craned her neck to see around the pilot. In the time it took the  hovercraft to land, a shuttle had miraculously appeared. A shuttle like  the one used to transport cadets from the Academy landing field to  Orion, in orbit above. A shuttle now visible because the dancing men had  actually been removing the heavy camouflage nets that had hidden it  from view.

"Move it!" the lieutenant ordered. "If Security decides to check us out, we're in trouble."

Dimi! If they were avoiding Regula Prime Security, who had snatched her  this time? Imperial Marines operating without sanction were more than  scary. Maybe gang rape and degradation had caught up with her at last.  Kass looked longingly at the woods, but knew she'd never make it. For a  fragile Psyclid who'd spent four sedentary years in a library outrunning  marines in prime condition was sheer fantasy.

The lieutenant hauled her up the shuttle's ramp and shoved her into a  seat. He dropped into the seat beside her, the sergeant across the  aisle. The outer door clanged shut. They strapped in just in time. The  shuttle shot up so quickly they were several kilometers above Regula  Prime before Kass caught her breath.

"Fyd!" a voice roared from the cockpit. "They've scrambled Tau-15s. Two  of them. Kiolani, get up here. We need malfunctioning trajectories."





Chapter 5


Tal Rigel, sitting in the pilot's seat, turned his head and peered  through the opening into the compartment behind him. Anton Stagg was  prying Kass's frozen fingers off her shoulder harness, hauling her to  her feet, propelling her forward. Fyd! He'd shocked her catatonic. Not  the way he'd planned it at all. But guilt would have to wait. The  shuttle's two M-100s were designed to frighten hostile alien animals.  Against Tau-15s they were toys. He needed the little Psyclid. Now!

Beside him, Mical Turco set the shuttle on auto and headed toward the  rear, freeing the copilot's seat. He murmured a greeting to Kiolani as  they slid past each other in the narrow aisle. She never looked up.

Stagg exchanged a dubious glance with Tal as he helped Kass into the  vacant copilot's seat and fastened her harness. He shrugged and shook  his head before returning to the rear. The only clue that Kass Kiolani  wasn't totally paralyzed by shock was the fierce clarity of her amber  eyes fixed on the flatscreen display set into the instrument panel.