Skolian Empire - Skyfall Part 18

Eldri's face lit in a smile. "None taken." Then he added, "The Memory doesn't actually know English, but she can replicate what she hears perfectly. Sometimes when she hears new combinations of sounds, she needs to check their p.r.o.nunciation."

Garlin leaned toward Roca. "What does light speed mean?"

"It means," she said dourly, "that it will take years for Brad's message to reach anyone." It sounded even more depressing out loud.

"I don't see what good that will do," Eldri said.

"Neither do we," Brad admitted. "But we must try."

Eldri inclined his head in acknowledgment. As he and the others resumed their discussion in Trillian, Roca spoke to Brad in a low voice. "Did you bring any weapons to this planet?"

"An EM pulse-gun."

She sat up straighter. "Do you have it with you here?" He could fight off a good number of warriors with such a weapon, as long as its ammunition and charge lasted.

He shook his head. "Garlin, Eldri, all these people-they've been my friends for years. I would no more draw that gun on them than on my own family."

"So you left it at the port."

"Yes." He rubbed his eyes. "I thought of bringing it, but I knew I didn't need a pulse-gun to make Eldri behave." He tapped the pocket of his jacket. "I did bring my smart-knife. But it won't help much against an entire army."

Although his response didn't surprise her, she wished he had thought to bring the gun. It was true, a pulse-gun was far more than he would need under most circ.u.mstances here, but someone in his position had to look at every possible danger. She glanced over the hall, so full of people who hoped Eldri and Garlin had a solution. "What do you know about this Avaril fellow?"

"Eldri's people don't like him. They don't believe he has any right to a t.i.tle his father lost." Brad paused.

"He is a personable man if you can get past his hatred of Eldri's family. But the Dalvador people love Eldri. The thought that Avaril would kill their Bard horrifies them."

It horrified her, too. "I wish we had your gun."

Brad spoke quietly. "Lady Roca, I would do my utmost to defend you and the people here. But attacking Avaril's men is another story. It violates so many interstellar contact laws, I can't even count them."

Roca gave him a sour look. "You Allieds have too many rules. Those warriors want to kill us. I would shoot them now and worry about interstellar contact laws later."

"Yes, you could kill a good number of them before they caught you or the gun ran out of power. Then what?" He spoke in a low, intent voice. "One pulse-gun can't destroy an entire army, even one armed with only swords and bows. You would be lucky to escape with your life, and it would be like stirring a hornet's nest out there."

Roca winced at the image. She indicated Eldri and his advisers. "What are they saying?"

"That we must prepare for a siege."

She made an incredulous noise. "This is surreal."

"No kidding."

Roca wasn't sure what he meant, but his tone mirrored what she felt. "Why is Garlin frowning?"

"He and Shannar are talking about blocking the bridge."

"Shannar?"

He indicated the older man. "Shannar Ervoria. He knows military procedures better than anyone else here."

"Have they considered destroying the bridge?"

Brad leaned forward to catch their notice. When Eldri inclined his head, Brad spoke in Trillian. Shannar answered, with Brad translating. "The bridge is too solid to break."

Roca considered what she had seen. Eldri's people knew how to smith metal swords and tools. She knew too little about forges to guess if the one here would have anything useful, but it was worth checking. As much as she hated the thought of destroying that extraordinary bridge, they had to consider it. "Can they make explosives?"

After Brad translated, much discussion took place. Finally he said, "It doesn't sound like it."

"Perhaps you can help them make some." Roca said. "Gunpowder, maybe?"

"What is 'gunpowder'?" Eldri asked in English.

"For a bomb, sort of," Roca said.

Garlin frowned. "And what is 'bomb'?"

"You know," Brad said. "Boom. Rocks and people go flying."

Garlin arched an eyebrow at him. " 'Boom'?"

"We could pour burning oil," Eldri said. "Or drop boulders."

With Brad translating, Shannar said, "Oil might have uses. But we have no boulders here large enough to affect that bridge."

"I cannot see my people starve!" Eldri pressed his palm against his breastbone. Then his eyes glazed and he stared into s.p.a.ce, his face blank.

The gray-haired woman leaned forward, her forehead creasing as she addressed Eldri in Trillian. He showed no sign of hearing. Shannar started to speak, but Garlin held up his hand, motioning for silence.

They all waited.

Brad spoke under his breath in a voice only Roca could hear. "What the h.e.l.l just happened?"

"He had a seizure," she murmured.

Eldri blinked several times and looked around. Garlin and the others resumed their discussion, making an obvious effort to act as if nothing had happened.

"He has seizures?" Brad asked.

Roca nodded. "How well do you know Eldri and Garlin?"

"Garlin, well. We often play chess." He paused, rubbing his chin. "Eldrinson comes by much less often.

He lives in seclusion, except when he sits as a judge or sings at festivals. His people say he is-" He spoke a Trillian word. It sounded flat, without the chiming of Lyshrioli vocal cords. "It means something like 'touched by the G.o.ds.' "

She sighed. "That seems to be what they call it here."

"Call what?"

"Epilepsy."

His gaze widened. "You think he has epilepsy?"

"Yes. I do." She watched Eldri, who was listening now while the others talked. "A few days ago he had a generalized tonic clonic seizure."

"Good Lord. You mean agrand malattack?"

She checked her node for English, but "grand mal" was under French. Big sickness? She found a better explanation in her medical files. "Yes, that is right. But that term isn't used by your doctors now."

"I had no idea."

"His condition looks serious to me, maybe life-threatening. I'm not certain he can survive without treatment."

"I feel so d.a.m.ned helpless. Wehavethe technology to do wonders for these people, but our hands are tied."

Roca felt her face flush. "I am sorry for my comments at the port about the, uh-the chocolate."

"Ah, well." He looked weary. "You had a point, even if I didn't want to see it. If we gave Eldrinson medicines without fully understanding his condition, we could do more harm than good."

She knew he spoke the truth. But that mattered little right now. It could be a long time before they had any means to help Eldri. Avaril might not have to kill the Bard at all.

Eldri's own body might do it first.

Part Two:

Siege

12.

Miracle of Snow.

The days pa.s.sed, one after another, melting together for Roca into a dreamlike routine. Windward went on strict rationing. They lit few fires and never shed their heavy clothes. Everyone ate sparingly. Instead of dreading the snow, Roca hoped for it now, to replenish water for drinking and was.h.i.+ng. Everyone waited, barricaded within the castle while Avaril's army camped outside. They prayed for the Dalvador army to come to their rescue, while no doubt Avaril's men prayed for its destruction.

Even if Dalvador could have sent an army, Roca doubted it could reach Windward; Avaril's men controlled the path up here from the plains and probably any other approaches as well. If the Dalvador army cut off his supplies, his climbers could bring them in through the northern mountains. Roca was developing a healthy respect for Avaril Valdoria; he was all too successful at this business of siege.

Yet for all the deprivations and fear, the days also brought joy. She and Eldri laughed, s.h.i.+vered, and made love, ensconced under the quilts on his bed. She loved his mischief, his teasing grin, the sensual way his lashes lowered when he wanted her. Their minds blended so easily. He had become part of her, an oasis in the loneliness she had lived with for so long that she had stopped seeing it.

He had no moregrand malseizures, but he experienced the less drastic type, blanking for a minute or two, then coming out of it, disoriented and dazed. For the most part, though, he seemed well, making her hope she had overestimated the severity of his condition.

Today he had gone to see Brad's group working on explosives. So far very little had come of the effort; Brad had too few resources and too little knowledge on the subject. But he and his people kept trying.

Roca didn't go with Eldri, though. She had barely forced herself through her dance exercises this morning. Now she sat in the dining room with several women, dully poking at her lunch. She was truly weary of bubbles. People ate nothing else here. The food came in every color and consistency, sweet, sour, big, little, soft, hard, but it was allbubbles.What she wouldn't give for a big, thick steak.

One of her companions spoke, a friendly girl of about twenty with pink hair streaked by gold. To Roca, her speech sounded more like wind chimes than words. She wasn't sure what the woman said, but it had to do with food.

Roca gave her a wan smile and struggled to communicate in her fractured Trillian. "I no bubble know."

She had meant to say she wasn't used to the food, but from their baffled expressions she gathered she hadn't succeeded. Trillian sounded so flat when she spoke it anyway.

One woman was watching her with particular concern, Channil, the gray-haired matron who served as an adviser to Eldri. She laid her hand against Roca's cheek, then felt her forehead. Roca couldn't understand her, exactly, but she thought Channil was asking how she felt. Roca didn't know how to tell them she couldn't keep eating their food. What could they do? They had nothing else. If a diet of bubbles made her sick, too bad.

Channil clucked at her and stood up, taking her arm. Roca let them lead her upstairs. They changed her into a nights.h.i.+ft and tucked her into bed, convinced she was ill. Roca supposed she was, though she had no cure for food poisoning, other than her nanomeds, which apparently couldn't deal with this constant diet of bubbles...

It was dark when Roca woke. She just made out Eldri in the dim light, changing for bed. Muddled, she rubbed her eyes. "Is it late?" She lapsed naturally into English with him.

"Very." He came to the bed. "How do you feel?"

"Tired." She closed her eyes. "I don't think I can eat your food, either."

He sat on the bed, still in his trousers and a green s.h.i.+rt with belled sleeves. "Tarla says you have missed your menses."

"Who?"

"Tarla. The woman who cleans our rooms. She says you have had no cycle since coming here. It has been enough time, hasn't it?" His voice sounded odd, as if he didn't know whether to be frightened or elated.

Roca sat up slowly. "I can't be pregnant. My nanomeds prevent conception."

He began to unlace his s.h.i.+rt. "Nanomeds. You use all these words that make no sense. When men and women make love, Roca, they have babies."

She touched his cheek. "I can't."

He pulled off his s.h.i.+rt and set it on the table. "Then why no menses? You have this sickness. And you are tired." His voice caught. "Will you give me a child?"

"I'm sorry." She felt how much he wanted this. "It isn't possible."

"Maybe these non-meds of yours do not work here."

"Chemistry doesn't just stop working."

He made an exasperated noise. "Chemistry. Brad likes this word too. He says it is mixing things up to make other things. It makes no sense. He claims the chemistry of life here differs from his world. Maybe it has made your med-things stop working."

"The differences in chemistry are what makes me sick."

He finished undressing and slid into bed, drawing her into his arms. "Very well. We will accept what you say. You cannot become pregnant. When you have gone nine months with no menses and are as big as Windward, we will discuss this 'chemistry'again."

She smiled, molding against his body. "Perhaps we should explore this idea about making babies some more."

He laughed softly. "We are most diligent, yes?"

"Hmmm." However queasy she might have been before, she felt remarkably diligent now.