Captives of the Flame Part 30

"Huh?" Uske leaned on one elbow, blinked, and scratched his head with his other hand.

A shadow approached him, then stopped, naked, faceless, transparent, half in and half out of the light. "See," came the voice. "A figment of your imagination."

"Oh, I remember you," Uske said.

"Fine," said the shadow. "Do you know what I've been doing since the last time you saw me?"

"I couldn't be less interested," Uske said, turning over and looking the other way.

"I've been trying to stop the war. Do you believe me?"

"Look, figment, it's three o'clock in the morning. I'll believe it, but what's it to you."

"Just that I think I've succeeded."

"I'll give you two minutes before I pinch myself and wake up." Uske turned back over.

"Look, what do you think is behind the radiation barrier?"

"I think very little about it, figgy. It doesn't have very much to do with me."

"It's a primitive race that can't possibly harm us, especially now that its--its generators have been knocked out. All of its artillery it got from a source that is now defunct. Look, Uske, I'm your guilty conscience. Wouldn't it be fun to really be king for a while and stop the war? You declared war. Now declare peace. Then start examining the country and doing something about it."

"Mother would never hear of it. Neither would Chargill. Besides, all this information is only a dream."

"Exactly, Uske. You're dreaming about what you really want. So how does this sound: make a deal with me as your guilty conscience and representative of yourself; if this dream turns out to be correct, then you declare peace. It's the only logical thing. Come on, stand up for yourself, be a king. You'll go down in history as having started a war.

Wouldn't you like to go down as having stopped it too?"

"You don't understand...."

"Yes, I know. A war is a bigger thing that the desires of one man, even if he is a king. But if you get things started on the right foot, you'll have history on your side."

"Your two minutes have been cut down to one; and it's up."

"I'm going; I'm going. But think about it, Uske."

Uske switched off the light and the ghost went out. A few minutes later Jon crawled through the laboratory tower window, b.u.t.toning his s.h.i.+rt.

Arkor shook his head, smiling. "Well," he said. "Good try. Here's hoping it does some good."

Jon shrugged.

In the morning, Rara got up early to sweep off the front steps of the inn (windows boarded, kitchen raided, but deserted now save for her; and she had the key); she swept to the left, looking right, then swept to the right, looked left, and said, "Dear Lord, you can't stay there like that. Come on, now. Get on, be on your way."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"For pity's sake, woman, you can't go around cluttering up the steps of an honest woman's boarding house. We're re-opening this week, soon as we get the broken windows repaired. Vandals didn't leave a one, after the old owner died. Just got my license, so it's all legal. Soon as we get the window, so you just move on."

"I just got here, this morning.... They didn't tell us where to go, they just turned us off the s.h.i.+p. And it was so dark, and I was tired.... I didn't know the City was so big. I'm looking for my son--not so big! We used to be fishermen back on the mainland. I did a little weaving."

"And your son ran off to the City and you ran off after him. Good luck in the New Land; welcome to the island of Opportunity. But just get up and move on."

"But my son...."

"There are more fishermen's sons down here in the Devil's Pot than you can shake a stick at--fishermen's sons, farmers' sons, blacksmiths'

sons, sons' sons. And all of their mothers were weavers or water carriers, or chicken raisers. I must have talked to all of them at one time or another. I won't even tell you to go down to the launch where they take the workers out to the aquariums and the hydroponic's gardens.

That's what most of the young people do when they get here ... if they can get a job. I won't even tell you to go there, because there're so many people that work there, you might miss him a dozen days running."

"But the war--I thought he might have joined...."

"Somewhere in this ridiculous mess," interrupted Rara, her birthmark deepening in color, "I have misplaced a niece who was as close to me as any daughter or son ever was to any mother or father. All reports say that she's dead. So you just be happy that you don't know about yours.

You be very happy, do you hear me!"

The woman was standing up now. "You say the launches to the factory?

Which way are they?"

"I'm telling you not to go. They're that way, down two streets, and to your left until you hit the docks. Don't go."

"Thank you," the woman was saying, already off down the street. "Thank you." As she reached the middle of the block, someone rounded the corner a moment later, sprinting. He brushed past the woman and ran toward the door of the inn.

"Tel," whispered Rara. "Tel!"

"Hi, Rara." He stopped, panting.

"Well, come in," she said. "Come inside." They stepped into the lobby of the inn. "Tel, do you know anything about what happened to Alter? I got a weird story from General Medical. And then you disappeared. My lord, I feel like a crazy fool opening this place. But if somehow she wanted to get to me, where would she go if I wasn't here? And then, what am I to do anyway. I mean I have to eat, and--"

"Rara," he said, and he said it so that she stopped talking. "Look I know where Alter is. And she's safe. As far as you know, you don't know where she is, if she's alive or dead. But you suspect she isn't alive.

I'll be going to her, but you don't know that either. I just came to check on some things."

"I've got all her things together right here. They gave me her clothes at the hospital, and put them all into a bundle in case we had to make a quick getaway. We had to do that once when we were working in a carnival where the manager suddenly took a liking to her and made himself a pest.

She was twelve. He was a beast. Maybe you should take--"

"The fewer things I take the better," Tel said. Then he saw the bundle on the table by the door. On top was a leather thong to which a few chips of colored sh.e.l.l still clung. "Maybe this," he said, picking it up. "What shape is Geryn's room in?"

"The place has been ransacked since they took him away," she said.

"Everybody and his brother has been picking at the place. What about Geryn, how is he?"

"Dead," Tel said. "What I really came about was to burn his plans for the kidnaping."

"Dead?" Rara asked. "Well, I'm not surprised. Oh, the plans! Why I burned those myself the minute I got back into his room. They were all over the table; why they didn't take them all up right then, I'll never--"

"Did you burn every last sc.r.a.p?"

"And crumbled the ashes, and disposed of them one handful at a time over a period of three days by the docks. Every last sc.r.a.p."

"Then I guess there's nothing for me to do," he said. "You may not see me or Alter for a long time. I'll give her your love."