Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

“Rings!” YZ/I shouted. “ I didn’t say I would discuss it with you!”

Legroeder shot back, “You didn’t say you wouldn’t.” He took a breath, gestured with one hand. “Look, you’re telling me all about how you want to talk with the Narseil, and share with the Narseil, and give up the free ride.”

YZ/I waved the burning tip of his cigar. “Your point?”

“And you’ve told me all about Carlotta conspiring with the Centrists, and Carlotta this and Carlotta that, but you haven’t said a word about yourself. How do I know you’re not as involved in piracy as she is? Not to mention slavery.” A rush of memories from DeNoble threatened to overwhelm him. He forced them back down, and glanced at Tracy-Ace out of the corner of his eye. How do I know you aren’t involved in it, too? he wanted, and didn’t want, to say.

YZ/I shrugged. “We keep our ear to the deck on the Centrist Worlds, if that’s what you mean. But we don’t have our hooks in their governments, like KM/C. The raiding—okay. I see it can’t last. Carlotta, she doesn’t see it. Neither do some of the other bosses. We’ve got a disagreement in that regard.” YZ/I raised his right hand and held it so that he could look into his own palm, as though studying the threaded pattern of light there. “With all the things we don’t agree on, it’s a wonder we’ve gotten this fleet assembled at all.”

He eyed Legroeder. “So if we do this thing, KM/C isn’t going to like it. And she isn’t going to like our collaborating with the Narseil. These are things I have to think about. I don’t live in isolation. Carlotta likes her cozy arrangement.”

“But wouldn’t it be to everyone’s benefit to find out why ships are disappearing?” Legroeder asked. And wouldn’t it also be to the benefit of that Kyber fleet that I want to stop? Hell and damnation .

“Yeah, but it wasn’t Carlotta’s probe ships that got lost, so what’s she care? You rescue Impris and that’ll interfere with a lucrative raiding setup.” YZ/I shrugged. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”

Legroeder thought about getting KM/C even angrier at him than she was already…

“So needless to say, I’m taking one hell of a risk just underwriting the mission. So don’t give me a lot of crap about what other risks I ought to be taking on.”

Legroeder closed his eyes. Had he pushed as far as he could push? Probably he would be smart to stop here, and just agree to it. Bring Impris back, clear his name, get people talking. What were Harriet and Morgan up to now? And Maris? They seemed a universe away, another lifetime. He was supposed to ask about Bobby Mahoney. Jesus Christ, he’d almost forgotten. But this wasn’t the time…

“And yet,” he found himself saying, “you continue to fly, and fight, with forced labor.”

YZ/I glared in astonishment. “Christ, you don’t give up, do you, boy?” He coughed on the cigar smoke; the stench was making Legroeder dizzy. “Yeah, we fly with captives. It’s part of our history. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Give it up.”

YZ/I gave a long, sputtering laugh. “Give it up!” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that!”

“You said you were the underground. You want things to change.”

“Yeah, we’re the underground,” YZ/I said slowly. “And the reason we’re the under ground is you don’t just change things overnight. People like Lanyard—they’ve got friends.”

Legroeder felt as if he were sliding on ice, unable to stop. “You’re getting soft and lazy, preying on the innocent.”

YZ/I stood up and shouted, “ Fuck… you… boy! Don’t you talk to me that way!”

Legroeder realized he had involuntarily raised an arm to ward off a blow.

YZ/I stood before him, his face a meteor shower of fury. Then he shifted his glare to Tracy-Ace. “What are you looking at?” he shouted.

Tracy-Ace raised her eyebrows.

“Rings.” YZ/I chomped his cigar and turned his back to them for a moment. Then he sat and shook his head. “You have to understand some history here, for chrissake. Jesus! You don’t know what it was like.”

But I’m about to find out…

“The Centrists cut us off. Treated us like scum, like nonhumans. Sure, they made peace. Peace .” YZ/I snorted. “Peace with no future, peace as long as no one with hardware in their brains had a planet to live on, or worlds to conquer. They cast us off, cut us off, and sent us to live in Golen Space. And you wonder why the Free Kyber started raiding shipping, three generations ago? What else were they supposed to do?”

Legroeder opened his mouth, closed it. “But you said you want to change it.”

“ Yes! We need each other! I know that! But it can’t be done overnight. There’s just no way.”

Legroeder leaned forward. “So make a start. Start it here. This is your chance to make history.”

YZ/I glared, his anger clearly rising.

Tracy-Ace rubbed the flickering augments by her left eye, and said softly, “He’s saying what I’ve been saying, YZ/I.”

“Do me a favor,” Legroeder said, “and put up that image of the fleet again. The colony fleet.”

The monitors changed to the fleet image.

“Big fleet. Must be hundreds of ships.”

“Over a thousand,” YZ/I said.

Legroeder nodded. “And it means a lot to you to have the fleet get through safely. A lot of effort. Resources. Lives.” Legroeder pressed his lips together. What am I talking about trading here? His head was pounding.

YZ/I stared at him furiously.

“End the piracy.”

YZ/I spat to one side. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“You’re asking me to risk my life. And you want me to trust that we’ll talk about it? Send me and the Narseil home with Impris . You can have all the information we get from her. It could save your fleet.”

YZ/I snarled and blew smoke at him.

Legroeder let the smoke pass. “If we’re going to deal, make it real.”

YZ/I flung down his cigar. “Guards!” he shouted.

Before Legroeder could finish drawing a breath, there were four heavily armed and augmented Kyber soldiers surrounding him on the dais. Tracy-Ace was staring at YZ/I, wide-eyed. Legroeder’s heart was pounding so hard he could barely hear YZ/I’s next words.

“You think you can just waltz in here and tell me what to do! Guards, take this man to—” YZ/I suddenly broke off and jerked his gaze over to Tracy-Ace. They stood facing each other with silent glares, joined as though by a high-voltage charge. Legroeder watched them in numb bewilderment, trying not to think about the neutraser muzzles that were pointing at his chest. Tracy-Ace’s implants were pulsing at a frantic rate; YZ’s face looked like a contained explosion. What the devil was going on between them?

Suddenly Tracy-Ace cried out in pain, staggering. YZ/I turned with a curse to one of the soldiers. “Stand down your men. I’ll call you if I need you.”

The soldiers melted away. Tracy-Ace rubbed her temple and stood straight again, scowling.

YZ/I looked down at the floor where his cigar lay smoldering. Then he looked up at Legroeder. “I will negotiate—not with you, but with the Narseil commander—on a timetable for ceasing hostilities. If we come to agreement—and I think we will—you’ll do the mission. Agreed?”

Legroeder forced himself to draw a breath. “One more thing.”

YZ/I’s eyes danced with fire. “ What , damn it?”

“A small thing—to you. There’s a boy…” He told YZ/I about Bobby Mahoney and Harriet. “Would you try to find him? See if he’s okay? Release him?”