Текст книги "Way Of The Clans"

26

More than a year passed before Joanna and Nomad found Aidan. The search had been long and laborious, consisting mostly of interviews with people who had either seen Aidan or who sent the investigators off on false trails. Along the way, the two worked together efficiently, while making life hell for one another.

Their reports, transmitted back to Ter Roshak at regular intervals, showed that Aidan set a fast pace, world-hopping almost frantically, as if no individual place could hold him. (At least, that was Joanna's repeatedly stated conclusion.) Roshak, on reading such comments, was reminded of the peripatetic Ramon Mattlov, who—never satisfied with anything in his life—was happiest when traveling.

Aidan had left Ironhold on a freighter, posing as a member of the laborer caste. Being in desperate need of a cargo-hauler, the bosun—like most merchant mariners on all planets—took the easy way out when Aidan claimed to have misplaced his papers. Aidan's Tech experience at Crash Camp served him well in the hold, and the bosun came to trust him.

When the bosun offered to sign him on for a tour of duty, Aidan pretended that he might accept the job, then he disappeared into the teeming city of Katyusha on the planet Strana Mechty. It had always been said of Katyusha that it was a city where anything and everything was for sale.

"I knew there was something odd about that kid," the bosun told Joanna and Nomad. "He did his job too well. But he did not steal anything. I can vouch for that. It is the rare cargo stiff who is not tempted by one of those capsules that break open, you know, accidentally?But Aidan, he was honest."

Joanna was not sure of the value of this information, but she was happy to get away from this DropShip officer, whose breath stank of offworld dream herbs.

Aidan evidently spent little time in Katyusha. From there, he took a short hop to Marshall, where he got into some trouble. They heard of this from a restaurant laborer they met in an eating establishment in the tough outskirts of an otherwise quiet city called Custer. From her, they learned that Aidan had picked a fight with a trio of Elementals who were in the restaurant imbibing a bucket of some local concoction. "The one you seek was taking his meal at a corner table," she said. "The Elementals were across the room. I was engaged in duties away from the main room when the Elementals finished their drinks and wanted another round. Not seeing me, they simply ordered the one you seek to get up and serve them.

"Well, this—you say his name is Aidan—this Aidan stood up and confronted the Elementals, looking ready to explode. By now I had finished with my chores out back and had entered the room in time to see what was coming, but not in time to stop it.

"One of the Elementals—a man called Stong—rose from his seat to chastise Aidan." The woman broke off her tale suddenly and, unable to continue, looked at the floor.

"Go on, Leonor."

"I do not know how to continue except to tell the simple, honest truth. I could not hear what words they spoke, but suddenly this Aidan marched over to the table of Elementals and stood toe-to-toe with Stong.

"Everyone of those fellows was a good head and a half taller than your young man, but he did not.even wait for the dare that surely would have been the next thing out of Stong's mouth. Those Elementals were, of course, even more enraged that he had insulted their ritual."

"Of course," Joanna said.

"It was a surprising fight. He tried to take on all three Elementals at once."

Nomad raised his eyebrows appreciatively, but Joanna gave him a baleful glare.

"For a while, I almost thought this Aidan was going to be able to floor all those giants lined up against him. But they were, after all, Elementals, and nobody could take on all three. They dealt him quite a beating, but still he would not satisfy their ritual."

"Now, what ritual was that?"Joanna asked.

"That he kneel before them and beg forgiveness, as befitting a member of the laborer caste."

"No," Joanna said reflectively. "He would not likely have done that."

"A wonder they did not kill him," Nomad commented matter-of-factly. "Elementals are not known for leaving survivors in close engagements."

"They might have," Leonor said. "I have seen warriors do so after such an insult even when the laborer performed the necessary ritual of forgiveness. It may be that the Elementals let him live in admiration of his defiance."

Continuing their search on Marshall, Joanna and Nomad turned up no further clues for awhile. Then Nomad, whose specialty was wandering into places where even warriors might fear to tread, learned from some dock-workers that someone fitting Aidan's description, but calling himself Damon, had left on a shuttle to Grant's Station only a few days before. When Joanna questioned Nomad about why he thought this particular person might be Aidan, Nomad pointed out that Damon was Nomad spelled backward.

Grant's Station was a Wolf Clan planet. There were times, those periods when relations between the Jade Falcon and Wolf Clans were strained, that a Jade Falcon warrior might have had difficulty gaining entrance to the planet. But this was a calm period, politically and socially, and Joanna, as a Jade Falcon officer, was actually welcomed. Perhaps too welcome, for Joanna's acquaintanceship with a 'Mech pilot named Alexey temporarily diverted her from duty. Nomad kept his own counsel, but her actions set him to wondering if this might have been the flaw that had exiled her to Ironhold in the first place. Left on his own, Nomad conducted his own investigations. Though he located several people who remembered Aidan, he uncovered nothing that would further their search.

* * *

One night, when Alexey was off somewhere on duty, Nomad reported to Joanna what he had found. "Not much," she said.

"My apologies, Falconer, but can you say that your association with Alexey has turned up more?"

"You really despise him, do you not? Quiaff?Answer."

"No, I wouldn't say I despise Alexey. For a fellow whose mustache threatens to make his upper lip sag to his jawline and whose brow cannot be found, he is a wonderful specimen of a warrior."

Joanna bristled, but dropped the subject. Yet, Alexey proved a revelation even to Nomad. The Wolf Clan warrior nearly found Aidan for them. One day, he led them to the edge of a forest, where they awaited a rendezvous.

"What is this place?" Nomad asked.

"You do not care, so do not ask," said Alexey, who tended toward brusque speech and behavior. "This is just the place where they will hand over to us the young man you seek."

"Will it offend you, Alexey, if I ask just who it is that is supposed to give us Aidan?"

"I am not offended. This is bandit territory. The young man you seek has been with a tribe of them for the last month. He went through their punishing rites and, I am told, performed impressively."

"You mean he was accepted into a bandit tribe?"

"Yes."

"And the tribe will turn him over to us?"

"Yes."

"Do they have no loyalty, these bandits?"

"Not when you can pay them generously for what you want."

Nomad turned to Joanna, who was uncharacteristically silent. She had been staring at Alexey, a strange look in her eyes. Nomad thought the look might be her version of regret. Having located Aidan, they would leave Grant's Station. If ever there was an ideal mate for Joanna, Nomad thought, he would look, sound, and behave much like this Alexey.

Alexey straightened into alertness, hearing some forest sound that Nomad must have missed. When Nomad did catch the sound, he identified it immediately as horses racing toward them. Alexey's hand rested lightly on a laser pistol holstered at his side. Joanna, too, crouched in readiness. Nomad, never a fighter, looked for a place to dive to if danger arose.

Five people on horseback emerged abruptly from the edge of the forest. One of them, just before he might have trampled Alexey, reined in and spoke to him. It seemed to Nomad that sweat from the horses and their riders splashed the air all around him, while aromas he could not identify clogged his nasal passages.

Alexey suddenly grabbed the reins of the bandit speaking to him, his expression indicating he would have liked to topple both horse and rider.

"What do you mean, escaped?" he shouted. The bandit, thick in body but unusually short for a Clansman, replied: "It was not even an escape, warrior. When we went to fetch him, he was gone. As soon as you and I had concluded our deal, I had a sensor device planted in his clothing, and we thought we had tracked him to a spot not far from here. But all we found were the clothes. He had no other garments. He is running naked somewhere, but we do not know where."

"I think I know," Alexey said. Methodically, he went among the bandits, pulled three of them from their horses, throwing them roughly to the ground. Then he ordered Joanna and Nomad onto two of the horses, while he swung his bulky body onto a third magnificent steed.

Once settled onto the smooth unsaddled back of the horse, Alexey lost no time urging the animal forward, Joanna and the remaining bandits close on his heels. Nomad was not so quick to respond. Timidly, he suggested to the oversized beast he rode that it might be suitable if it followed the others. The horse, apparently used to keeping with the pack, took up a position at the rear. The two of them bounced along after the others for what seemed to Nomad an uncomfortably long distance, during which he periodically had to resist the urge to deposit some of his last meal along the roadside.

Alexey led them to a small outpost at one end of the forest, a garrison composed of warriors whose main task was to keep the bandits in check. As the group came through the outpost gates, they heard a sudden roar as a small hovershuttle quickly rose above the outpost, and with a rush of power, flew away. Alexey cursed, knowing the story that the freebirth captain of the garrison would tell even before he heard it.

The captain reported that, indeed, a naked bandit had climbed the walls, disarmed a sentry, forced her to give him her uniform, knocked her out, descended from the guard post, ambushed the warriors guarding the shuttle, and then ambushed the craft—taking the shuttle pilot with him. Alexey said that of course that was the outpost's only shuttle. The captain replied that it was, and Alexey rendered him unconscious with a single, hard, abrupt left jab.

These warriors have rather limited responses to crises, Nomad thought, but was careful to keep it to himself. Joanna would not be shy about raining some of her best blows on him.

Though they sent a message to the spaceport that Aidan be taken prisoner if he showed up there, the message was garbled by a sleepy comm specialist. Aidan, posing as a personnel evaluator on a tour of military encampments, had hooked a ride on a ship just before it lifted off.

"Damn!"

"What is it, Falconer?"

"Nomad, I am beginning to admire our quarry. And now our search is going to get even tougher."

Nomad cocked his head inquiringly.

"Because now he knows we are looking for him."

"I'm not sure that's a problem."

Joanna shuddered at Nomad's continuing use of contractions, but she had stopped cautioning against such vulgarity. "Yes?"

"Aidan still has the instincts of a warrior, Falconer. He will try to flee, but he'll always be willing to meet us on the field of battle. He'll get showy. Just you watch."

"I do not know why I talk to you, Nomad. You are clearly mad."

"True, but that doesn't impair my judgment."

"Go to bed."

"Will you join me? I am not Alexey, but—"

"You are notAlexey. And I do not, as you know, believe in intercaste relationships. So, good night."

Joanna decided there might be some validity to Nomad's logic when they easily traced Aidan to the planet Barcella, where he joined another bandit group. They expected to corner their quarry there, and would have-except the report they received upon arrival on Barcella was that Aidan, disguised as the commander of the local battalion, had been found out and executed.