Hilltown Chapter 13

[hafoc]

Chapter 13

Maggie held Hill's pocketknife, with its built-in flashlight, in her teeth. She reached for another fallen branch. Then she saw what was on the ground before her. She flinched and stumbled backward, scattering her armload of firewood on the redwoods floor.

There wasn't anything that looked dangerous to the untrained eye. There had been little scurrying sounds in the underbrush, there had been small animals whose eyes glowed in the light from Hill's pocketknife, but they all ran away, more afraid of Maggie than she could be of them. There were weird plants, trunks segmented like bamboo, some with nasty-looking curved thorns. They looked dangerous, alien. Maggie had moved past them without fear. But now she was terrified by little flowers that looked like the most harmless thing here.



They spread across a barren damp area. They smelled faintly of lemons. Their clusters of leaves covered a patch of muck so thickly that they choked out all other plants there. The leaves looked unusually earthlike; arrowhead-shaped, instead of the usual trailing ribbons of the other redwoods plants. Even their color was comforting. Although the center of each leaf was red, a wide band along the edge of each leaf was a reassuring green, just like you'd see on an Earth plant.

The flowers were shaped like little pitchers, with a flap like an awning spread over each to keep the rain out. They were black.

Hissing quietly between her teeth, she grabbed the little knife and held its light close to the flowers. They were small, which meant they might be extra deadly, or it might mean just the opposite. What was their true color? Were they all black, or...?

Hill had chosen a white light in his knife, even though monochrome versions were far brighter for the same power. His was a wise choice, as it turned out. Dim as it was, the light let her see that, instead of the pure black or deep violet of most trapflowers, these were black with red veins.

That was very good. Booker's Trapflower was still dangerous; she knew that perhaps better than anyone else on the planet. But she could manage their danger. As for their other properties, now she took a moment to whisper a prayer of thanks to the Old Gods for leading her here. These little flowers might save Hill's life.

Did she still have that pill bottle in her pocket? She reached in, and pulled it out. She hadn't needed the motion-sickness pills since she didn't know when, but she still carried them. It was an old, useless habit that had turned out to be lucky.

She shook the pills out onto the ground. She screwed the little bottle into the mucky soil so it would stay upright.

She really should have gloves for this, even though they were Booker's and no other kind of trapflower. But if she'd remembered to snap the first aid kit to her life preserver, it had broken off somewhere on the way to shore. She'd have to improvise.

She broke off two twigs. She used the twigs as chopsticks to turn a flower and pour its liquid contents into the container. The blossom yielded most of a cubic centimeter of thick, clear liquid.

That should be enough. But this was a good patch of Booker's Trapflowers-- and, unfortunately, she couldn't know how often she'd need that nectar. Or how much she'd need when she did. If the rest of Dawn Treader's crew was ashore somewhere, if there had been a shipwreck, she might need quite a lot.

So she kept on collecting nectar. It was ironic that she would do this, since she was still a police officer, more or less. True, this was a Booker's Trapflower, but if the Continentals saw her doing this, they'd shoot her in that instant. They weren't ones to make fine distinctions between different kinds of nectar thieves. Maggie knew that too. She'd served with the Continental Police in the Cray Archipelago herself. Jorbin. She remembered Jorbin.

She screwed her lips into something resembling a grim smile. She only wished she had to worry about a member of the Continental Police seeing her here! They weren't all like Jorbin, after all. She wasn't, or she hoped she wasn't. Even the threat of arrest seemed like nothing to worry about, compared with being shipwrecked with a wounded man on an alien shore.

There. The little bottle was nearly full now. Carefully, she tossed her chopsticks aside and screwed the bottle top back on. The clear nectar looked innocent enough, but now that bottle contained life and death. A death sentence too, come to think of it.

She gathered her firewood again. This last armload should make enough to keep a small fire going most of the night, and it was getting too dark to be wandering around in the Redwoods. What might have happened to her if she'd tripped and fallen face-first into that patch of innocent-looking black flowers?

She picked her way back to the beach, carrying all of the firewood under one arm. She dropped a stick or two that way, but she wasn't going to stop for them. She carried the bottle at arm's length. She wasn't going to risk splashing that stuff on herself!

Hill had his arms wrapped around his knees and was staring out to sea. Now that it was getting dark, the sight of the vortex-fog upon the waters wasn't quite so bad. His eyes didn't look good; the pupils were different sizes. The clotted blood and torn, purpling flesh of his forehead were alarming.

"Did you see that weird steamship dead ahead of us just as Dawn Treader rolled and we went overboard?" His words sounded a bit slurred. This was bad. “I got hit about that time, and I'm not sure if what I saw was real.”

"The ship with the gantries on deck and the Captain wearing long johns and shaking his cane at us?"

"That's the one."

"Nope. I didn't see it."

Hill laughed. "Me neither." His voice was becoming a halting mumble. "Do you think we're still on Carpathia's Planet?"

She dropped her bundle of red-brown sticks on top of the ones she'd gathered earlier. They made nearly musical tones, like a xylophone, as they hit each other. It was definitely not what she would have expected from firewood. "Oh, yeah. Hell yes. There, right behind you, are the redwoods to prove it."


"Then what was that steamship doing out there? That was big ship. Near big as anything. I'd know her, if she'd been built here. Never saw anything like her."

"Hell if I know. A ghost ship from an earlier age, perhaps; she looked awfully primitive. I've been aboard Birmingham at the Museum of the Revolution, and old as she is, she looks like a starship compared to that thing. But I suggest you don't worry about it. We were in a vortex, Old Gods save us. You can't worry too much on anything you see in such a place. That way lies madness. I think anything you can dream could come to life in there."

Hill shuddered. "No. No, just the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

His head dropped, but he was trying to stay awake, or so it seemed. “No. No dreams in vortices. Didn't it ever occur to you that you make your own world? We all do. Our world is what we create from what we have inside. The world around you is your dreams, or at least they're a big part of it. But the vortex is where dreams don't work. The chaos of the unformed world, nothing. Before creation. The ultimate in hard reality. Merciless. No hope." He touched his forehead and hissed in pain, snapping his hand away again. "Tired. Head hurts bad. I'm so sleepy."

"Stay with me a moment, Arthur. Stay awake now. You can rest in a few minutes." She hurried to the Sea and rinsed her little bottle in the bitter water. She washed her hands too."

"Why can't I sleep? So tired. What's bottle?"

"Nectar from a Booker's Trapflower."

That woke him up. "Trapflower nectar! Holy hell!"

"It's a Booker's Trapflower."

"There's a difference?"

"Oh, yeah. Don't drink it, of course-- it will kill you quickly if you do. But applied to your skin, it's different. You know, a synthetic version of this is the active ingredient in Heelz bandages."

Hill nodded, almost nodding off. "Read about it. Medical miracle. General... metabolic... booster. Accelerated healing," he muttered.

Moving quickly, Maggie took a twist of leaves from her firewood pile. She took the cap off her bottle, dipped the leaves into the nectar, and started painting it on Hill's cut and bruised forehead. "With a vengeance. This stuff's a lot more potent than the synthetic. More dangerous too, though. Just a little dab is all you--"

"Damn!" Hill shouted, eyes going wide. "That itches like--"

"Don't touch it! Don't touch! Give it a minute to soak in."

"And now it burns. But my headache is clearing already. No, nothing is that fast. I must be imagining it."

Maggie smiled and capped her bottle, putting it back into her pocket very carefully. She shone the light from the pocket knife into Hill's eyes, watched them, and nodded to herself. She walked to the water's edge and threw the leaves into the Sea. "I doubt you're imagining it. This is what the Continentals use in their trauma packs these days. It's nearly magical. Trust me, it's helping. Your eyes look better."

Hill looked worried. "My eyes? I'm still sleepy, though."

"You have every right to be sleepy, after what we've been through. Your pupils were looking funny for a while there, Hill. They look better now. Stay awake a while longer if you can, but I think you'll be all right."

She took a few sticks of firewood and set them, pyramid style, on the sand. Just enough for the “hatful of fire” Jorbin had told her to build. “The smart woodsman builds a fire the size of his hat, and stays warm by sitting near it. The greenhorn builds a huge fire and stays warm by gathering firewood.”

Jorbin. Why couldn't she stop remembering him today? The man, the officer, the legend. Sighing, she she reached into her pocket and pulled out a pencil-like silver cylinder.

"Um, Maggie? What are you doing?"

"Starting a fire."

"With a flare? Don't you think we might need that to signal Dawn Treader? I hope we still have a ship to signal, anyway."

"Do you have a better idea? Rubbing sticks, maybe?"

Hill smiled. "Give me back my knife."

"All right." She handed it to him. He pushed a catch on its side and two little prongs extended from it, on the end opposite the light. They were steel, blued and blackened with heat.

"Oh. A lighter. Figures."

Hill pressed the prongs against one of the pieces of firewood and pushed the knife's catch again. A red glow flared up for a moment, and the stick burst into flame.

"I have got to get myself one of those knives."

"They're handy little beasts. Don't get shipwrecked on an alien continent without one."

"Thank the Old Gods you carry that. All right, since you mentioned flares, I have three aerials and an orange smoke. Do you have any?"

"Lost 'em in the water, I think. They're gone, anyway."

"Damn. Well, I guess we wait here for morning. We hope the vortex lets up. It'll be a hungry and thirsty night, but we should be OK."

"Can I touch my forehead now?"

"The nectar looks dry. It should be OK."

Hill touched his forehead carefully, then more firmly. "That nectar is amazing! Where did you learn so much about survival in the Redwoods?"

"In the Crays. I was there with the Continental Police. I took a Redwoods survival course there. I was there with Booker himself, as it happens. He was the fellow who discovered this subspecies of trapflower. I knew him pretty well, before he died."

"The Redwoods got him in the end?"

"Not-- not directly. It was bad, what happened to him."

He frowned at her across the little fire. "I'm sorry, Maggie. I can tell you'd rather not talk about it. I don't want to remind you of something that bothers you so much."

"I've been thinking about it for hours. I suppose it's only natural, since it's tied up with how I learned redwoods survival, and here we are practicing it. But don't worry about it, Hill. It's a long story, and it's all finished, long ago now." She looked out into the darkness, listened to the swash of waves on the beach.

"In a way I'm glad to think about it, here. Here and on Dawn Treader, if she finds us again. This far from the continent I feel as if I've escaped that old sad story. Surely, none of it can hunt me down this far from home. I'm only now realizing how free it made me feel, having escaped the ghastly clutch of that miserable old story."

"Except for the part of it you brought with you."

She sighed. "Except that, yeah."

"That's the worst part of old sorrows, the part you bring along yourself."

"Oh, no. Not this time. Other people paid higher prices than I did. Of course, they brought it upon themselves. It wasn't my fault. At least I don't think it was."

Hill yawned. "Sounds complicated."

"Not really. Just important, in some unexpected ways.” She stared into the fire, remembering.

#

Margaret Blood stepped off the gangplank and onto the dock, trying not to look as young and inexperienced as she felt. It was ridiculous to try to pretend to be an old hand, though. She wore a bright green armband. All the first-timers here did.

“Greens to me!” an officer shouted. He had gray at his temples, and a hint of belly, but his muscles were hard, his eyes harder. His orange camouflage battle uniform was the most garish thing she'd ever seen, but it probably worked just fine in the Redwoods.

He smiled at them. The smile didn't touch his eyes.

“Greens here! Line up in alphabetical order. Anderson, Blood, Booker-- all right, son, put your duffel down. At ease, at ease, this isn't an inspection. Calm down, all of you. Cartmaker, Lightoller. That's fine.

“I am Lieutenant Jorbin--”

“Gorgon,” the tall, thin Green next to her muttered. He wasn't bad looking; skin unusually pale, maybe, but that was striking with his black hair. He must be Booker.

“--known to some as The Gorgon,” Jorbin continued, as if he hadn't heard the comment. Perhaps he hadn't. “It's a charming little nickname I picked up in training the Greens such as yourselves, and in hunting nectar thieves.

“Darned if I know why. I'm a sweet guy, really. I'm not here to break you or humiliate you. Not without good reason, anyway. The Crays are as far from New London as you can get, and discipline here has always been informal. We demand that you do your duty and do it well. We demand that you follow all orders quickly and without question, especially while you're still Greens. But whether you have to wear the armband or not, I know that each and every one of you is a Continental. Each one of you has completed the best police training we can offer, and has at least two years of experience on the streets and highways. You are officers, dammit. You're worthy of respect for that.

“Which might bring up the question of why you wear those green armbands. You may think they're just something we invented to harass the rookies. Not quite true. Their purpose is to ensure your safety, and ours. Any humiliation you endure from wearing them is just an added benefit.”

He grinned that dead smile of his again. That last was a joke. Probably.

“You see, officers, the Redwoods will kill you more ways than you can possibly imagine. Until you've completed your survival training, you wear the armband. It tells the rest of us to watch out for you, and not to trust you too much once you set foot off of Harbor Island.

“Officers, again I promise I'll never go after you for no reason. But if you screw up in some way that is likely to get you killed-- or someone else killed-- or, Old Gods protect you, likely to get me killed-- I will come down on you so hard you'll think you're on Ground Zero Ridge and it's crashlanding day all over again. The Redwoods don't give second chances. I can't afford to either.

“Any of you have specialized training? Raise your hands. Don't be shy. You.” He pointed at her. “Your name is?”

“Blood, Margaret. Communications Technology through Advanced Two.”

“That should be useful. And you would be Carson Booker?”

“Yes, sir. I'm a candidate for a doctorate in botany.”

“Botany? Redwoods botany?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I'm not sure how much use theoretical knowledge is for us here. We tend toward the practical, life and death stuff. All right. If you're lost in the Redwoods, what's your safest food source?”

“Most of the deciduous bamboos have at least some sugar-sap in their hollow stems. None of them are poisonous, as long as you don't eat the leaves.”

“Good. But you can't get much sugar out of the so-called bamboos. So what's next best?”

“Banana-like fruits, if they're the four-sided ones without hollow stems. Also blue or black groundberries. They're not completely safe, but only about ten percent of the people are allergic to them, and only about half of those dangerously so. At least on first exposure.”

“Good again. You missed the animals, though. You'll learn about them. Mind you, the proteins in native meat are all wrong for us, but over a short period they won't do much harm. Unless you're allergic, of course. You can even eat a snakewolf, if you've cut off the head to be sure you're not contaminating the meat with poison from their fangs.

“But we'll get to that later. Your first class starts tomorrow, oh-six-hundred, Room 303 in the Castle. That's the Castle there, in case the building's looks didn't tell you that already. Go there now. You need Redwoods uniforms, and the corpsman wants to see you. After that, stow your gear in the Old Barracks, that gray stone building down the shoreline there. You'll have plenty of bunks to choose from; we had a lot of washouts in last month's group. Get to it, people. Move!”

The Castle was a frowning old building that looked like something from Old Earth. Heavy stone, barred windows, thick walls. Dim light, the smell of floor wax and old books. And a seemingly endless list of people to shout at her. She got scanned for her orange uniform. She had to turn in her sidearm; she'd carried it for a year and a half, and felt naked without it now. Pee in the cup. Bite down on this. DNA scan for likely allergic sensitivities, and then scratch test after scratch test to be sure.

“You OK, son?” the corpsman asked. Margaret didn't know him yet, but his name tag read NORTH.

“I don't know. Hot.” The Green named Lightoller looked bad. His face was going pink, he was sweating, and he seemed to be panting.

“Oh, geez.” North grabbed a breathing mask and a huge needle. He jammed the mask onto Lightoller's face and hit the spray button. Lightoller was wheezing now, and he seemed to be having trouble standing. He held the mask to his face with what little strength he had left and wheezed into it, inhaling the steroid mist and the oxygen it dispensed. He didn't even flinch when the needle went in.

It wasn't a bad reaction. They stopped the allergic reaction before Lightoller blacked out or went into convulsions. But that was it for him. They bundled him out of there; to the dock, to the boat, out to the supply ship before it could set sail for home.

Her group had its first washout, and he hadn't done anything wrong. Not one thing.

#

Margaret groaned. “Medical hell in a castle Dracula would have loved. Maybe they got the needles out of the torture chamber. I don't know.”

Booker laughed, but he rubbed his own arm. “I think the bleeding will stop in a day or two. We sure have a lot to learn in the next couple of weeks, though.”

“It creeps me out running around in that castle, thinking how old it is. Think of the ghosts that might walk those battlements come vortexfall. Cray himself might be there.”

Booker laughed again. “Not hardly. The Castle's barely a hundred years old. The Dracula Revival style is supposed to make us think of the proud heritage of the Continental Police or something. This building, on the other hand--” He waved at a section of the wall near Margaret's bunk-- “This plain old gray stone shed of a barracks, Cray's men built. That patched-up masonry there? That might be a hole blasted by Birmingham's guns, or by one of Colt's demolition charges.”

“Birmingham didn't shell Harbor Island. Colt led a raid on Eastern Island, far side of the harbor.”

“Heh. I guess you know your history too. I'm Booker. I have a first name, but I don't use it much.”

She shook his hand. “Margaret Blood.”

“Now, there's a coincidence. You aren't descended from Admiral Blood, are you?”

She smiled dismissively and shrugged. “Oh, you know us Bloods. There's a bunch of us in every port. We're not all descended from the Admiral.” She was, herself, but she didn't like to make a big thing of it. Whenever someone asked her that question, she was good at not quite lying about it.

“True enough. But you didn't act like a Blood aboard ship. I swear, I thought you were going to get seasick once or twice along the way.”

“Almost did. Oddly enough for a Blood, I'd never been to sea. Going to sea was one reason I wanted to serve in the Crays. What's your reason?”

“I hope Gorgon lets me study in the Redwoods.”

“He'd say we're not here to study, we're here to stop the nectar trade.”

“Maybe I can convince him. We've never investigated the Redwoods much, looking for useful plants.”

“And probably never will, given how trapflower nectar affects us. The Redwoods want to kill you, Booker. Don't forget that.”

“Trapflowers are what make me think there might be medical plants out there. Trapflower nectar really does make the mind sharper. It really does revitalize the body and help it fight off diseases. Euphoria, intoxication, the beautiful dreams that lead you down the road to brain damage, madness and death, assuming your heart doesn't give out first-- yes, trapflower nectar kills you, and if it doesn't kill you one way, it will in another. Its ways of killing seem infinite. But suppose you could find something like that, but without the intoxicating side. You could use it for those beneficial side effects nectar has. You could even use it to wean captured addicts off of the intoxicating version, until their bodies could go on living without any nectar in their systems at all. Wouldn't that make the world better for all of us?”

“I thought that stuff about nectar sharpening your mind was just a myth.”

“It's not something the Continentals want to advertise, given nectar's deadly properties. But I hope there's some way to filter those parts out. Or perhaps there's a plant that has some of the good effects without the bad ones.”

“It doesn't sound impossible, I guess. But you don't know whether any such thing exists.”

“Nobody does. Because nobody will look. Nobody is trying to find out.”
“Well, you won't either, until you get through this training course. And you won't get through if you wash out. We'd better get some sleep. Six o'clock comes terribly early.”

“You've got that right. Goodnight, then, Officer Margaret Blood.”

Around her, the other young officers were settling into their bunks. The lights went out, except for the dim blue glow of the floor lights.

Somewhere out there in the gathering darkness, the patrol boats waited. Fast, dark, deadly little ships. She couldn't wait until her introductory training was over so she could go to sea in one.

But there were whispered stories that bad things happened out there. Things the law shouldn't allow, wouldn't allow if it knew about them.

She sighed and rolled over. It was just jitters, she was sure. This was the Continental Police. The Continentals wouldn't let anything illegal go on, would they?

Patrol boats. First patrol, dark water slipping silently past the streamlined black catamaran hulls...

Maggie slept.

#

She scanned the water to port over the barrels of her guns. The water was flat as glass, thank goodness. No embarrassing seasickness today, especially while the patrol boat cruised along under power. Her fuel cell-driven motors pushed her along without a ripple of foam to give away her position, with barely a hum, barely a hiss of passing water.

What was that? Something small, dark against the orange of the predawn sky. She fumbled with the grips on the twin .50 calibers. Her arms were clumsy, she hadn't known she was so cold. “Boat, sir! I think it's a boat. There!”

Jorbin jerked on the motor levers, spinning the catamaran nearly in place. “Where? I don't... GODS! Open fire!”

The catamaran heeled as Jorbin threw the levers the other way. They almost collided with a metal object that rose from the smooth water; if it had't been turning away too, they would have run right into it.

She couldn't tell what it was, the strangest boat she'd ever seen, but she swung the guns and squeezed the levers anyway. The M2, an ancient design so perfect nobody had ever changed it, yammered its two-thousand-year-old song. It blasted fifty caliber death at the metal thing, whatever it was. The object was sinking, but the bullets just sparked when they hit it; they didn't seem to be penetrating. Why was the target sinking, then?

The twin fifties might not be able to penetrate, but their tracers and the sparks they struck pointed out the target for the 30mm automatic cannon aft. Thump, thump, thump, explosions on the target, holes in its side when muzzle flashes lit things enough that she could see them. Then the metal object was rising, not sinking, and her mind made sense of what she'd seen. Submarine. She was firing at the conning tower of a submarine! There had been rumors that the New London Syndicate had built one. She'd thought that was ridiculous. But here it was, and she was bouncing bullets off it. Damn!

Now that it had surfaced, she could see it looked well-made and simple. If it had deck guns, she couldn't see them. The 30mm “pom-pom” worked along the sub's waterline aft, where the heat exchangers for the fuel cells were. Somebody-- Booker, he was on the aft gun-- was thinking! He could cripple her if he hit her there.

The sub's steel must not be very thick, even on the main pressure hull; the pom-pom was punching holes in it. A blue flash, and the sub rocked. Their single-H tank had caught fire. She could see the sub's steel glowing already, aft of the conning tower. It went red, was moving toward orange and yellow.

The sub slid to a stop. Two men appeared on top of the little conning tower, waving their hands in the air. Margaret stopped firing.

“Blood! What are you doing? Fire!”

“They're surrendering--”

Jorbin cursed. He leaned over her and squeezed her hands tight on the levers again. She tried to stop him, but he was too strong. The machine guns blasted away. Booker had ceased fire too, but now the pom-pom opened up again. Explosions marched along the sub's hull.

She saw one of the men on the conning tower shred as the machine guns' bullets riddled him. The second man spun away. Then the sub's single-H tank blew, shooting flame and shrapnel to the sky. Blue flame shot out of the sub as far forward as the conning tower. It disintegrated. She had a confused view of something rolling in churning water, and then there was just the water, churning, calming slowly. Bubbles came to the surface. A shoe and two drink bottles floated in a slick of lubricating oil. The dawn smelled of burnt paint, burnt hair, and burnt meat.

“They really did have a submarine,” Jorbin said. “Damn. Who'd have believed it?”

“Lieutenant Jorbin, they were trying to surrender!”

“Damn you, Blood! I tell you to fire, you keep firing. I don't care what the regulations say back on the continent. Surrendering or not, you fire until I tell you to stop! Pull a stunt like that again, and you're off the islands. Do you hear me?”

“But--” Margaret took a deep breath. “Yes, sir. I hear you.”

“Margaret,” Jorbin said, a little more gently, “You don't know what weapons they might have had on that thing. And besides, these were nectar thieves. It's not worth taking any trouble to bring them to trial. They'd just end up in front of a firing squad anyway.”

“Yes, sir,” Margaret said. She would hold her peace, for now.

#

“We have to report this, Booker. You were there. Those nectar thieves were trying to surrender, and Jorbin just gunned them down.”

“You were on the fifties.”

“He squeezed the triggers!”

“I didn't see that. In any case, whether you killed them or not, it's your word about what happened against his. Who's going to believe you? Who'd believe me? I mean, even if I'd seen what you think I did. This is Jorbin, the Gorgon, for Pete's sakes!”

“What he did was wrong. It was murder. Whatever the consequences, I have to say something.”

Booker took a deep breath. “Good people sleep safe at night because there are rough men in the darkness, doing the dirty work that needs to be done”

“Listen to you! You're a scientist, damn it, not some vigilante from a Wayne and Eastwood show! That kind of talk is all very convenient for the rough men, after they've done their dirty work, but you have higher standards than that.” How could the studious Booker be so in love with the idea of vigilantism? It was so different from his nature. Her heart sank. That was it. He loved it because it was so different from his nature.

“Margaret, you can't be sure. Maybe that sub was armed. Maybe Jorbin was right after all.”

“I know what I know.”

“But there's nothing you can do about it. You'd sacrifice your career for nothing. And you might be wrong about what happened.”

She thought for a long time. Finally, she sighed. “I guess Jorbin could have been right.”

#

“And I hated myself for saying it, Arthur,” Maggie said, staring at the fire on the beach. It almost seemed she could see who she had been, all those years ago; see the past and the future, empires of possibilities, lost chances, triumphs and regrets. “I hated myself for going along with something hardly better than murder, if it was any better at all.

“And yet, who would have believed me? I was a patrol officer with about two years of experience. It was my word against the Gorgon's. He was a legend in the force. Nobody would believe me if I accused him of murder. I told myself there was nothing I could do. I should just shut up, for my own career and to preserve the reputation of the Continental Police.

“Looking back, all these years later, I still think I was right. And yet there's that nagging doubt. If I had spoken then, before things went so far, maybe they would have turned out differently. I can never know. That's the worst part.

“Jorbin stayed in the Crays, where he'd been for years. Booker stayed with him.

“I kept my mouth shut, and I went back to regular police work on the Continent, as far from the Crays as I could get. I got a bit of a good reputation as a patrol officer, I guess I could say, although I think people looked down on me a bit because I turned down promotions if they would force me to move to a desk job. That's the way it is in any bureaucracy, Arthur. If you're good at actual work, they want to promote you out of it, to some job where you only transfer data around. If you refuse that, they get all confused. They end up thinking that maybe you weren't so good at what you did after all. Then you don't have to worry about turning down promotions, because they stop offering them to you.

“But I didn't care too much about that. I wanted to stay on the streets and highways, so that's what I did.
“Even New London has its Continental Police patrol force, though. In the fullness of time, I got assigned to there. I was almost close enough to the Ivory Tower to be blinded by its glare.

“Jorbin and Booker got there before I did. I think those two would have stayed in the Crays forever, except Headquarters started to get hints of bad things happening down there. The Crays had become their own little kingdom, with its own laws, and its code of silence. The last place Jorbin would have wanted to serve was in New London, right under the eyes of the higher command. I think that's why they put him there. And Booker came with him. Booker was more or less Jorbin's lap dog by then. I didn't know that yet, of course. But I was about to find out.”

In the darkness of the redwoods, things moved half-seen in the mists of the vortex. Hill nodded as he listened. She stared into the fire, and watched the story play itself out as it had before. As it always did, when the sleepless nights came upon her.

#

“You're still out on the roads, Maggie?”

She grinned. “You're not, I dare say.”

Booker laughed. “Guess not. The dress uniform would tell you that if the belly didn't. But I never was much of a field operator. Tea?”

“Sure.”

Booker took a couple of mugs out of the “clean” end of their dispenser. He stuck each mug into one of the drink machines along the break room's wall. Without turning, he called over his shoulder “Muffin? We have some fresh ones. Bagels too.”

“Thanks, no. I had breakfast. So how are things going for you and June?”

“Pretty good.” He turned, walked to the table, and set her tea before her, set his own tea on the table, sat down. “She's from an old Senatorial family. It's hard for her to live in 'proper style' on an officer's salary, but she has some money from her own work. We have a little extra money from here and there. And her folks help out a bit. They put up with me. You know how the Continentals are. Since the Navy became the Coast Guard, we're the only organization with enough prestige to hobnob with the old nobility, even in the absence of money.”

“Hobnobbing with the old nobility isn't likely to concern me. I'm a patrol officer with grit under my fingernails. They wouldn't think much of me.”

“Yeah, more's the pity. You deserve better.”

“I can't say it bothers me. With all respect to you, I don't care if I impress the descendants of dukes and counts. I don't care about them, and I'm sure they wouldn't like me on principle anyway. We Bloods have our own history, and it isn't exactly Royalist.”

“It's amazing that people still feel those old divisions so strongly, after these centuries.”

“Isn't it, though?” She sipped her tea. It was a reasonably nice blend, black tea with a hint of some spices. “I presume you're still in the labs. How'd your search for medicines turn out?”

He cringed and paled. Why would he do that? “Basically, it didn't. But I'm still working at it. I'm still studying plants in the greenhouses. Maybe I'll find something useful some day. Maybe.”

“We can hope.” Obviously, the subject hurt him. She'd be careful not to discuss it with him again.

“You seen Jorbin yet?”

She glanced at the wall clock. “No. I'm supposed to be in his office at 9:00. If he's still the same old Gorgon, I'd better not be late.”

“He's not that hard-core.”

“Oh?” Not if you follow his every whim without question, perhaps. “Even so. First impressions, you know.”

She tossed back her tea and headed down the hall. Jorbin had come up in the world. He was a Captain, and he rated his own office. It had real doors and a window and everything.

“Officer Blood. It's good to have you in my post.”
“Thanks, Captain Jorbin. You haven't changed a bit since the Crays.”

He chuckled. “Thank you, if you meant that as a compliment. I understand you haven't changed, either. Oh, no longer the rookie you were, of course. Your highway rep is one of the best. Competent, fair, tough as they come, and by the book, always by the book. You're what you were, way back then, but more so.”

“Oh, you'd be surprised.”

He laughed. “Well, I don't mean to say you don't use common sense. And in my post, you're going to need to.”

“What are you saying?”

He sighed. “Maggie-- I can call you that, can't I?”

“Of course.”

“Maggie, this is the Big Time. New London means the biggest, toughest, most dangerous crime syndicates. Prostitution, virtual identities, data crime, drugs, counterfeiting, nectar; you name it, we have it here.

“The syndicates are big, and they're tough. And, frankly, they have protection. I don't think they have much of an inroad into the Continentals, although I might be wrong even about that. But I know they have contacts in the city police, and I know full well they own several Members of Parliament. Maybe even a Minister or two.

“I remember how soft you were on nectar runners, back in the day. Always wanting to give them their full legal rights, by the book, and a little bit more.”

“It's what I believe in, sir. The Continental Police and the law. If we don't stand for the law, we don't stand for anything.”

He shook his head and smiled. “Well said, if a bit... idealistic. I guess I'm glad to know you're still the same Maggie you always were. But I'm warning you right now. If you can't see fit to shade the odds a little bit in your own favor, at least be sure not to shade them in favor of our enemies. They won't have any such scruples when they deal with you. They will kill you dead. And I don't want that. Not anywhere, and especially not on my watch.”

“I understand, sir. I'll be careful.”

“Good. Now, you've never served at the New London post before, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let's throw you right in the deep end, then. Oh, nothing too dangerous, or at least I hope not. But something to give you an idea of the special circumstances here.

“The Assistant Minister of Security gets uniformed bodyguards when he appears in public. There are plainclothes Capitol Security officers too, but even so, we take bodyguard duty seriously. We're Continentals, not a ceremonial palace guard, damn it. I want you to take that duty today. You'll go fully armed and armored, and keep an eye out. If we show up at all, we're going to show up gunning for snakewolf.”

“Do I go alone?”

“No. You'll be with Timmins. It's a good match. He's a good, sensible kid. Less than a year out of the Academy, but he's drawn bodyguard duty a couple of times. You've never done it, but you know about everything there is to know about street work. I figure you two can educate each other.”

“Sounds like a good plan. Where and when?”

“Meet the Assistant Minister in his office at 10:00. Timmins should meet you there. He's got a few chores in Booker's greenhouses before he heads over.”

“All right. Bodyguard duty. It sounds harmless enough, but I'll keep my eyes open.”

“Good. You never know. Something interesting might happen.”

#

Maggie saluted. She wasn't sure whether it was proper to salute someone out of uniform, but the Assistant Minister of Security was supposedly Commanding Colonel of the Continental Police; it was just as well to be careful. “Officer Blood reporting for duty, sir.”

“Yes, yes, whatever.” Assistant Minister Whitfeld shuffled the papers on a desk that was immense, brand new, and polished to a rich glow. “Get me some tea.”

Maggie blinked. “Tea?”

“Yes, tea, damn you! Tea with milk. I gotta record a speech for the Police Pensioners, how much we honor their service and all that, and my throat is dry. Get me some tea! What, you're too stupid to understand a simple order?”

“Officer Blood is new in town,” Timmins said. He was a fresh-faced kid with curly ringlets that were just disorderly enough that she knew they weren't styled. “She doesn't know where the tea is. I'll get it.”

“Glad to know someone's useful around here. You, stay out of the way.” He picked up the papers and read, muttering. “Sterling service-- no, faithful. There. That sounds better.”

“Your tea, sir.”

Whitfeld took the tea without thanking Timmins; probably didn't even notice that anybody had served it to him. He took a big gulp. “Assure you that your retirement funds are-- You. Kick the thermostat down a couple degrees.”

Maggie did so. Whitfeld ran a finger around his collar, loosening it. He shuffled his papers and drank more of his tea, tossed it back, put the cup down. Timmons whisked the mug away and carried it out the office door, heading down the corridor to the right; that must be where the tea and the mug cleaner/dispenser were. She'd better remember that. It looked like fetching tea would be the most useful part of her service here.

“Awfully warm. Thermostat. Turn it down!”

The thermostat was already set low. Whitfeld was turning pink.

“Are you all right, Assistant Minister?” Maggie asked.

“Of course I-- what--”

He reached up and rubbed his nose. His hand came away red with blood. Looking shocked, he started to stand up, opened his mouth; his eyes looked wide and afraid, like a terrified child's. And he fell over, hitting the desk, sliding to the floor, landing on his back. Just like that.

Maggie cursed. She hurried to him. His eyes looked vacant. She opened his shirt, checked the arteries in his throat. “Timmons! No pulse, no respiration. Call in a code blue. Now!” The kid was just standing there in the doorway. He looked down at her, at Whitfeld, his eyes calm and.. satisfied? Didn't he know something was wrong? How could he be so slow on the uptake? But now he grabbed his collar-mike and was speaking into it, urgently. Help would be on the way.

She performed CPR. Timmons helped. They kept going until the paramedics showed up with a life-support gurney. But Assistant Minister Whitfeld was dead. The paramedics wired him up and rolled him out, as was their duty. But Maggie could tell, by their eyes and by their pace, that they knew there was nothing they could do for him.

And Timmons, Jorbin's “good, sensible kid,” watched Whitfeld's body go. His eyes were calm. The corners of his mouth twitched.

#

“Ah, Officer Blood. I'm surprised to see you. What brings you to my modest little shop?”

“I need a favor, Jim.”

“What kind of favor?”

“Illegal. Technically speaking. Call it a whistleblower thing, if you want to.”

“You, asking for something illegal? It was all I could do to convince you not to arrest me for--”

“I knew you weren't going after that data for money, Jim. In your own way you're as much an idealist as I am. That's why I came to you. I think there's something dirty in the New London post, and I don't know how far up the chain of command it may go. Don't know who I can trust. But on the other hand, I don't even know if the problem's real, or if I'm being paranoid again.”

“Hey, wait a minute, Maggie. That sounds like you want me to crack a Continental database. Aside from the pure hell that'll come down on me if I get caught doing that, do you know what kind of security the Continentals use? A good operator can crack anything, given infinite time. But Continental Police security is the best there is. Crack them before I get caught? That's damned near impossible.”

“There's a trick. If I'm right, the information I want should be encoded so that you can find it. It's supposed to be found.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“Yes it does, just not in any usual way.”

“So explain.”

“All right. I have this friend, an officer who I have tea with every day before I go out on the streets. Here's his data trace number. I think he discovered something that he wants the public to know, but he doesn't dare tell. If I'm right, he'll have it recorded somehow so that if he were to die or be incapacitated, the info would be released.”

“Oh. A deadman, a sleeper program that checks for him on the payroll, something like that?”

“That's what I'm thinking. So if you can guess what event might trigger the data release, does that make it easier to find the file?”

“Might make it damned near trivial. It's for a good cause, though?”

“I think so. Jim, don't let them trace you. Some people have died, and--”

“Like Assistant Minister Whitfeld last month, with his aortic aneurysm? Or Speaker Crist of the Longshoremen, three days ago? Like six or eight other dirty pols, executives, and union leaders over the past year or two?”

Maggie was silent.

“I'll take that as a yes. Certain acquaintances of mine have been talking. I'd imagine some of you Continentals have been talking to each other too. It's been a unlucky time for officials on the take, or suspected of being on the take. Not that I mind much, philosophically speaking, but it is interesting.”

“Two years?”

“Maybe longer.”

“Maybe you'd better forget it. If this is real, it's too big, too dangerous for you to touch. You could get killed.”

“You forget to whom you speak. Mister B-539875LC won't even know I was ever on his system. And if he did, he won't be able to trace the touch back to me. I can have a cutout via the Earthwave station in Hilltown, if I need it.”

“Maybe you should.”

Jim grinned. “Earthwave's data rate is too slow, by orders of magnitude. But I don't know. It would be amusing just to try. You, on the other hand, you watch out for yourself. They may not be able to prove who is looking into their files. But if there's one officer I'd suspect of investigating bad actors within the Continentals, it's you. And they know your highway rep better than I do.”

“They'll never think I would have gone to someone as far outside the system as you are.”

“Don't bet on it. If they're so far outside the law themselves--”

Maggie sighed. “All right. I won't bet on it. I'll be careful.”

#

Some nights she stopped for a beer on the way home after work. She'd chat with the bartender and the regulars, drink her beer, visit the “powder room,” check the little crevice behind the fire extinguisher in the hallway, and then go home. She'd found a little envelope behind the fire extinguisher the night before. She took it home with her.

The paper inside had print so small she had to use a magnifier to read it. When she did, she almost wished she hadn't. What should she do now?

Well, one thing she should do was obvious, thanks to the tiny size of the note and the fact it was written on candy-paper. The taste reminded her of the regional fair when she was a kid. It struck her how much she was trusting Jim, as she ate it. There could be anything in that paper. But she ate it, and lived.

The paper described a small variety of trapflower, black with red veins. Its nectar was a powerful metabolic booster. It had great healing qualities. But taken in too great a dose-- heart attacks, strokes, aneurysms, liver or kidney failure, sudden death without symptoms, almost any way of dying. All anybody would have to do to blow the scandal right open would be to dig up Whitfeld, or any of the others, and run a tissue scan for trapflower residue.

How would she face Booker in the morning? What should she say, or do? Who could she tell? Should she tell anybody? Corrupt officials had died, along with a few known members of nectar rings and rings running other drugs. The world was better off without them.

But if the Continental Police didn't stand for the law, who would?

Why had she agreed to come to New London? It would be better not to know about this. But since she did know, could she pretend she didn't? Could she live with herself if she told what she knew? If she didn't tell?

Maybe she wouldn't tell. Maybe she'd just let it go.

She didn't sleep all night.

When she walked into the break room before her watch, as she always did, Booker was already there. He didn't look like he'd slept any better than she had. Guilt struck her. “He knows somebody read the file,” she thought. How? Jim was good, very good-- but was there something subtle? Some sort of flag to warn Booker that his data file had been accessed?

“Good morning, M-M-Maggie.” His smile looked sick.

“Morning, Booker.” She watched him get their tea, as he always did, and set the cups on the table before her. “Say, get me a bagel, would you?”

“Um, all right.”

“Salt, if there is one.” He looked down into the bin, and she switched her tea cup with his. It was a smooth move, she did it before she could even think about it. She was holding her cup, or rather his cup, before he turned back toward her. He handed her a salt bagel, on a slip of paper.

They locked eyes. His eyes looked lost, and his lips trembled. She couldn't stand it.

“It's not so bad, Booker.”

He jumped. “What? What do--”

“See you later. I gotta get to briefing.” She walked out of the break room and headed down the hall. There was a recycler in the wall there. She fed it her bagel and her tea, mug and all. Then on down the hall to the ready room.

“All right,” Sergeant Lightoller said as Maggie took her chair. “There's a Mariner's Guild rally on the steps of Parliament House at noon today. We don't expect any trouble. The rabble-rousers have been quiet lately. But the City force has asked us to be ready just in case. There might be traffic problems, if nothing else.

“Royal Route One, east of--”

“Code blue!” the overhead speaker called. “Officer down, Room 1003!”

Maggie was first out the door. Jorbin came out of his office in the same instant. “Where is she?” he called, facing down the hall toward the break room.

“Here, sir.”

Jorbin spun. He stared at her in shock, but he was tough. He recovered almost instantly. “Someone's gone down in the break room.”

“Booker!” somebody shouted. “Booker's gone down. Crash cart on the way.”

But they couldn't revive him, of course.

Maggie felt dirty as she typed a message on her handheld computer. She fed it a little piece of candy paper and ordered it to print the message in tiny type. She would visit the bar, and the fire extinguisher, on the way home. She needed a drink. But getting a message to Jim was more important.

This had gone on long enough. This had gone on for years too long. It ended now.

#

Major Clark was gorgeous in his full-dress uniform, but his eyes weren't friendly. “You know we received an anonymous message about Booker?”

“I'd heard something about it, sir.”

“Did you have any inkling that Officer Booker might have been handling trapflower nectar?”

“Not really, sir. He would have if he had the chance, though.”

“You're impugning the dead--”

“Not at all, sir. Booker was a friend. But when he went to the Crays years ago, he told me he thought it might be possible to find some sort of medicinal trapflower. He said he dreamed of finding some wonder drug, like trapflower nectar without the bad side effects. He was so earnest about it that I'm sure he'd still work on it in those greenhouses of his, if he had any chance at all.”

“Trapflower nectar, as medicine?”

“Yes, sir. And think how powerful its effects on us are. If you could find the good ones without the bad ones-- But trapflower nectar is so potent. Handling it is so dangerous. It would be so easy to poison himself accidentally.”

“That would be a different case. Maybe he was a martyr to science. An honorable end.”

“I'm sure that if Booker had to die, he'd have wanted any medical research he'd done to live on. Check what he had in his greenhouses and on his computer. If I know him, you'd find the information there. He'd have been sure to keep it safe.”

“I'll send a crime scene team to seal the greenhouses and have our data recovery team check his computers.”

“If you want data recovery, you might check with Jim Hollander at Jimsystems, too. He's the guy Treasury went to after that--”

“Um, yes. And no backups. Embarrassing, that, but he worked wonders. Good thought; he's the best there is. Thank you for your help, Officer Blood. I'm reassured that Booker might not have been a dirty cop after all. And now we'd better get inside.”

She wasn't the only one who shed tears at Booker's funeral service. The ranks of Continentals, representatives of the various City Forces, the Preservers, and even the Coast Guard, all in their full dress uniforms; the bagpipes, the volleys fired into the air at graveside; the speeches, the ceremonies, were designed to be heartrending. They achieved that goal, and more. They were almost too much for her to bear.

But June Booker moved stone-faced through the whole thing, as befitted a daughter of the Old Nobility. She was a thin, beautiful woman with the strangest blond hair, nearly white, flowing down to the middle of her back just like Queen Charlotte's in the famous portrait. She looked fragile, but she had death in her eyes. Maggie wouldn't want to cross her.

The bugler played Taps, eventually. She stood at attention until Major Clark barked “Dismissed!” Then, with a sigh, she turned away.

Someone stood in her path. “Officer Blood.”

“Captain Jorbin.” He looked like he wanted to say something to her, or ask her something. But she just stared into his eyes for a moment, then brushed past him and away. She fled to her beloved Valkyrie and the road.

She rode far out of town, into the night. She might be half-asleep tomorrow. She might be late for work, or might not show up. She might be drunk. They might do something to her for it or they might not. She didn't care.

The road, the dust and bugs, had stained her beautiful dress uniform. She'd have it cleaned. She said good night to the Valkyrie, punched the button to close the garage door, and walked down the sidewalk, along the shrubs, as insects chirped in the cool summer darkness.

She heard something and turned toward the streetlight. She couldn't see who was there, but she saw the flash as the shotgun went off. She heard the roar from far away. There was pain, and then there wasn't, and she was falling backward. Everything was so far away.

#

“It's a miracle you survived. You had no pulse when you got here.”

“I don't feel like I survived anything.” It hurt, everything hurt.

“Even so. Who shot you? We're going to get them. You can't shoot a Continental and get away with it. We're family.”

Maggie grinned weakly. “Thanks, Stan, but I don't think you can help. Whoever it was, they had the streetlight behind them. I couldn't see their face. Little person, though. That much I know.”

“Maggie, I'm-- I don't know what to say. I--”

“I'll get better. Oh, hell, Stan, I lost most of a lung. They might not let me on the lonely highways again, not officially. But I'll raise holy hell if they try to take my bike and my armor. I'll be able to ride on my own time, at least. And they can give me a desk job in headquarters, with all the other ruptured ducks. Or I can wrangle disability retirement. Maybe I'll do that. I'm tired of dealing with the scum of the Continent. I'm tired of the filth and corruption. I wish I could believe in the goodness of people again. I want out. This wound might be the best thing for me, in the long run.”

There were tears in Stan's eyes. She was trying not to cry herself. The Continental really were like a family, her family. They were what she believed in. They were the only thing she believed in. Had believed in.

“You're a credit to the heritage of the Force. I'm proud to have served with you.”

“You too, Stan. Maybe you'd better go now, though, before the doctors throw you out.”

He left. Once he was gone, Maggie looked around as best she could, to make sure nobody was listening. It wasn't likely in a hospital, but she might as well be sure.

She picked up her phone and dialed Booker's number. Someone answered. “Is this Mrs. Booker? Is this connection secure?”

“Scrambler is now on. Who is this?”

“Margaret Blood. I have a message for you.”

“What would you have to say to me, Officer Blood?”

“Just this. Stop now.”

“Stop? I have no idea--”

“Mrs. Booker, I didn't see the face of the person who shot me. This is what I have told my fellow officers, and it is true. Much as you might wish I would, I will not lie to a fellow officer. However, I did see the shooter's silhouette, and particularly I noted her hair. Lit from behind, it was quite distinctive.”

“I won't sit still to be insulted by such as--”

“You will. You will sit still to be insulted. You Royalists think you have long memories and a sense of honor that brooks no insult. You think you know about vendetta, but you're just children, just little children. Take on the Blood Family some time. Take us on. I dare you. Just you try. One word from me, one word that I have already recorded, one recording I have hidden in a safe place, for now-- do you understand me?”

Silence on the other end of the connection.

“You have your sense of honor. Fine. So do I. Out of my respect for a man who deserved better than fate gave him, who deserved a better wife than you; out of respect for his sons; out of respect for the Continental Police and our tradition of incorruptibility, I will never speak further on this. But I know, bitch. A commoner knows what you did, and holds the honor of your family in her hands. Live with that, if you can. And see to it that you don't cross my path again.”


Silence on the other end of the line. Or was that a sob? Maggie didn't care. She pushed the END button.

#

The fire glowed, a tiny fire, but it gave so much heat. Small as her store of firewood was, it would last the night. If this was a normal night, if it ended with a normal dawn at the proper time.

“I still had one more person to face, or so I thought. But Jorbin still rode his motorcycle, and riding has its dangers. He died in a hit-and-run with a freight hauler before I got out of the hospital.

“His death was like Booker's all over again, except that this time there was no possibility that I killed him. Maybe he committed suicide. Maybe when the Syndicates or some of the surviving corrupt politicians read the news reports about Booker's Trapflower and the wonders its nectar could work, they put two and two together, figured out that Jorbin was involved in it, and took steps to get even. I don't know. I never tried to find out.

“I went through rehabilitation, and went back to work, sitting at a desk, shuffling data around. But I couldn't stand that, so I took disability retirement as soon as I could.

“June Booker didn't last long. Drink, drugs-- accident, suicide, murder, I don't know. I didn't want to know that either.

“And so here I am. I preserved the reputation and honor of the Continentals, but maybe I killed as many as three people to do it. Three people I guess you'd call more good than bad, in the usual balance of things. I saved that in which I had faith, but I don't have any faith in it myself any more.

“So I drifted to Hilltown, as we all do. As all the used-up people do, the ones who don't have purpose, who don't have anything to believe in, and who can't live without those things.

“Did I do the right thing, Arthur? Am I some kind of hero, or some kind of monster? Booker, his wife, Jorbin; is their blood on my hands, or on their own? What do you think?”

But the power of the nectar, forcing his metabolism into an insane rate of healing, had exhausted him. Arthur Hill sat nodding, breathing deeply, fast asleep. She had no way of knowing how much of her story he'd heard.

With a sigh and a grim little chuckle, Maggie settled down to get some sleep herself. Her silly little problems were still hers alone. How silly it was to think she could ever run fast enough to escape them!