Lee, Sharon - Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

Another rock came out of the cluster of tormentors.

The pilot gasped when it struck his arm.

“Stop that!” someone shouted, her voice strong in the Command mode. Aelliana was standing at the downed pilot's side before she realized that the voice was hers, and that her position was unsafe in the extreme.

“Another one!” “Is she holding another?” “Search her!” “Take them both down!”

A rock flew toward them, its trajectory flat and purposeful. Aelliana saw its course unwind inside her head, saw that it would strike the pilot's unprotected head, and danced sideways. She snatched the missile out of the air as if it were a bowli ball, allowing the energy to spin her, releasing as she came back around, sending the rock back, low and fast, into the crowd, directly to the one who had thrown it—

Bone broke with an audible crunch, followed by a scream and a disturbance among the crowd.

“My ankle! She broke my ankle!”

“Enough!”

That voice brooked no disobedience; the crowd froze, the screams subsiding to moans. Aelliana maintained her position between the wounded pilot and harm, as Daav strode toward the crowd.

“You!” he snapped. “Surrender the pilot's case!”

“Oh, no you don't!” came the returning snarl. “It's a norbear in here, and it's bound for the river with a rock in the bottom of the bag to keep it company.”

Behind her, Aelliana heard the pilot whisper a scream.

“Give me the bag,” Daav repeated. “I am a Scout captain. I hereby take possession of the contraband item and will dispose of it in the prescribed manner.” He paused, his hand extended. “Which is not throwing it in the river.”

“It'll take over your mind,” someone else in the crowd shouted. “Scout captain or not!”

“If he is a Scout captain!”

“Am I not?” Daav demanded and flowed forward, swift and silent, his hand suddenly on the bag holder's shoulder.

“Surrender the norbear,” he said softly. “You do not wish to incite my pilot to further violence against you.”

There was a general mutter, a moan of “My ankle . . . ” and that quickly the bag was in Daav's hand and five of them backing away.

“But what about him?” demanded a voice from the rear. “The proctors will have business with him, bringing that perversion here!”

“We will take care of the pilot,” Aelliana heard her voice assert. She bit her lip.

“I suggest,” Daav said, stepping to her side, “that you disperse. One of your number has injured herself and requires medical attention. That is your first order of business and your closest concern. These other matters will be taken care of appropriately.”

Perhaps it was the absolute certainty of Daav's voice; perhaps it was the continued whimpering of their downed comrade. Whichever, the crowd faded away, and very shortly they were alone in the alley with the wounded pilot.

“Thank you, Scouts, thank you . . . I am in your debts . . . ”

The pilot thrust clumsily to his feet, slamming his uninjured arm against the wall with no regard for bruises. He extended an unsteady hand.

“I'll be off now. I swear, we will be off-planet before dawn, and never come back here. Just be good enough to hand me the case—”

“You're wounded!” Aelliana protested. “Daav, we must find him a medic!”

There was a small pause, then Daav went to one knee on the alley floor. He opened the top of the case, just a little, and peered inside. A furry hand crept over the edge, and gripped his finger.

The wounded pilot whined, high and futile in the back of his throat.

Daav sighed.

“You're quite safe,” he told the bag, at his most matter-of-fact. “Recruit yourself now and allow us to do what must be done.”

He closed the bag and swept gracefully to his feet. The glance he spared for wounded pilot was . . . not kind.

“My pilot and I will escort you to the Healers,” he said, which, Aelliana thought, was sensible. The Healers would have an autodoc, and it was plain that the pilot had sustained other, less visible injuries. He shook where he stood, and his posture was of one who expected a blow to fall at any moment. Aelliana swallowed against a sudden surge of tears. So had she been, and look what wonders the Healers had wrought for her.

“There is sense in what the Scout says,” she said gently. “Come, let us go to the top of the street and hail a cab.”

The Healers kept a small house in the port; barely larger than the bakery at which she and Daav had eaten their lemon squares, hours or days ago. What they lacked in scope, however, they more than made up for in action. Scarcely had the door opened to them than the wounded pilot was whisked away upstairs, while they and the case were left to stand in a chilly parlor considerably less spacious than The Luck's piloting chamber.

“Perhaps,” Aelliana said, when half a glass had fallen and no one had yet come to speak with them. “We should simply leave the . . . case, van'chela, and return to our ship.”

The item under discussion was sitting on the floor against his leg. He glanced down thoughtfully. “That might, after all be—”

“Nay, nay! The case and its contents must go, and also the noisy empath! You, my lady mathematician, are just the woman to take them both in hand!”

A thin man with a well-lined face and fading ginger-colored hair swept into the parlor, pale robes trembling about him.

“I beg your pardon?” Aelliana stammered. “We are here in aid of another pilot, and—”

“Yes, yes! It was well that you brought him to us; we can assist—but not until that creature is well away, and you!” He spun to stare up into Daav's face. “You are disrupting every Healer in the Hall!”

“My apologies to the Hall,” Daav murmured.

He took a breath, closed his eyes, and seemed to—to step away from himself. Aelliana gasped, for truly he burned less vividly inside the dingy little room. He opened his eyes, and her heart cramped; his gaze was remote, as if he looked across a distance too great to bear interest, or humor, or love.

“Daav . . . ”

She stepped forward, hand rising—her wrist was caught by the Healer, his bony fingers surprisingly strong.

“Yes, that is well done and I thank you!” he said snappishly, apparently to Daav. “Maintain yourself thus, and give respite to those who shielded themselves in time to avoid a headache! Pilot—”

He turned to Aelliana, releasing her with a small bow. “As improbable as it seems, this man will do as you tell him. Tell him, I implore you, to take up the norbear and go away with you, back to your ship and off of Avontai, immediately!”

“We had thought,” Daav said, in a too-calm voice, “to leave the norbear in the care of the house. The Healers on Liad often take charge of such strays.”

“This is not the homeworld!” the Healer snapped, and sighed. “Forgive me—you are not informed. We dare not keep the creature here, Pilots. Avontai has a horror of such things as mind control—we are barely tolerated—and only if we are careful not to interfere too much! To hold a norbear in-house would be to destroy the Hall. We cannot allow even such limited aid as we may offer to falter on one life—any life. You have interfered in an alleyway brawl, which you surely know better than—and now you must pay the price. Remove yourselves to a place of safety greater than Avontai. We have summoned a cab—go now!”

Aelliana met Daav's remote black gaze and shivered.

“What is your name?” she asked the Healer.

“I am Hall Master Ver Sev. Feel free to use my name with the Portmaster. Now, will you go? Every moment those two linger here is a moment that those in pain are without surcease.”