THE WORLD RAN IN waves, melding with the sky until both were one. She found the far horizon, became it, really, and melted into the sun’s rising across the lap of the waters.
Far below in the depths, she could see Robbie’s face, paler than in life, but at peace. He seemed to be breathing. Each slight opening of his lips let escape a tiny current that spread, rising and rippling, until it became the waves that moved the ocean itself.
She would have waited, to see how far the waves rode onto the far shore of hills, but the brilliant whiteness at the heart of the sun drew her, and she drifted toward it, letting herself go as it drowned her in its light.
Except that somewhere out on the waters someone was singing. The sound, plaintive and achingly beautiful, caught her, and she paused.
Even as she paused the sun dimmed, its edges curling in as it sank into the waves, and she could make out the words of the song.
Ich will bei meinem Jesu wachen
So schlafen unsre Sünden ein
Meinen Tod büsset seiner Seelen Not
Sein Trauren machet mich voll Freuden.
Drum muss uns sein verdienstlich
Leiden recht bitter und duch süss sein.
I will watch beside my Jesus.
Then our sins go to sleep.
His soul’s distress atones for my death.
His mourning makes me full of joy.
So his meritorious Passion must for
us be truly bitter and yet sweet.
It was dim, in this room, except for the gleaming curve of Bach. He floated next to her, singing softly. A single light shone on his surface.
For a long moment she just lay, staring at him, and then she realized that she was breathing, and alive, and that her eyes were open.
She blinked. A face appeared.
“Lily!” Soft, but triumphantly intense. “Lily-hae. You made it.”
“The Formula.” Lily gasped, fighting for breath against a vast pressure that weighed on her chest. “Got to get it out. Got to get the broadcast out—” She struggled to sit up, but could not manage it, too numb—or perhaps it was Jenny’s hand on her torso holding her down.
“It’s been done,” said Jenny. “Don’t worry, it’s been done.”
“You’re sure?” Her voice sounded harsh and muted to her ears. “The Hierakis Formula, I mean. It got out?”
“Yes.” Jenny’s voice had faded from its initial cheerfulness to something more soothing. “Yes. Hawk has been distributing the base for months, you know. Everywhere the Forlorn Hope traveled for Jehane. I sent Pinto down with a crate of the base, and we set up a message to go out on every net, but one got there ahead of us. Of Pero’s making, I believe.”
Robbie.
“I shouldn’t have told him.” She could feel enough now to clench her fist in frustration. “I shouldn’t have told Robbie about the Formula, but it was the right thing to do. Hells, Jenny, if I hadn’t told Robbie about it Jehane wouldn’t have had him killed. I should have shot him that first time. I shouldn’t have saved his life on Blessings. I should have—”
“Hold on, Lily. Hold on. Hold on.” Jenny put a warm hand on her forehead and then Kyosti appeared abruptly beside Jenny and rather unceremoniously shoved her away. He laid a hand softly on Lily’s throat and just stood silent, breathing, for a long space.
At last he sighed and removed his hand. “Let me give you something to drink,” he said, and disappeared.
The entire ritual confused her enough to sidetrack her thoughts. As sensation returned slowly to her body, she discovered that her throat was already dry from talking. “Where am I?” she asked, feeling lost.
“You’re on the Hope,” replied Jenny, reverting to cheerfulness. She grinned. “And am I glad to see that you’re going to live. When they dragged you in here so shot up that your clothes were half-burned off you, we all thought Hawk was going to go berserk on the spot. He hasn’t left this room since you came in. He even slept at your feet.”
“When I came in?” Lily coughed. The movement racked painfully through her body, but it was sweet pain, because it proved finally to her satisfaction that she was alive, and whole. “But—Jehane—”
Jenny gave a quick, furtive glance around. “Finch was on comm when a message came in to Captain Machiko. He saw to it that it was acknowledged, but that the captain never got it, and then sent Nguyen down to alert me and Yehoshua and Hawk.”
“Got to think,” said Lily desperately. She tried to move, but she was encased in some kind of soft, clear plastine, like a wrapping.
A hand touched her cheek gently. Jenny moved aside to admit Kyosti again. “No thinking,” he said. “Drink this.”
The liquid was cool and tart. He moved away, busying himself at the couch she lay on, and she felt the touch of his hands as he examined her. The drink acted rather like a catalyst, clearing her mind.
“That’s better,” said Jenny, coming back into her restricted line of vision. “The only reason you’re not dead is because you picked the right friends. You were shot up this side of all Seven Hells. If Hawk wasn’t the best damned emergency doctor I’ve ever seen work. …He dragged you single-handedly back from the edge.”
Lily smiled, as well as she could. “I don’t doubt it.” She attempted to turn her head, and did. “Bach.” She did not try to whistle.
Patroness! His cadence in reply was brilliantly resonant with joy. I despaired, but I did not give up hope of thee.
“How did you find me?”
Patroness, indeed I waited, as thou instructed me, but when thou didst not return and I received a message from Herr Pinto that he had arrived at the port and awaited us there, I grew anxious. I then discovered several messages from thou on the net, relaying thy position. So did we find thee.
“Thank you,” replied Lily in a muted voice.
Kyosti returned to the head of the couch. “Out,” he ordered Jenny. “Give me a few moments in peace, please.”
Jenny glanced at Lily, for confirmation, and Lily managed to tilt her head slightly. Jenny snapped a salute, and retreated.
For a long moment, Kyosti just gazed at her.
“I guess I was shot up pretty badly,” Lily said. The fact of it seemed remote to her now. In the back of her thoughts, she kept seeing Kuan-yin reaching for her pistol and shooting Robbie. Vanov dumping him over the side.
“We won’t talk about that,” he replied, brusque. She saw a kind of wild desperation inform his face, and she shivered, wondering what kind of havoc he would wreak if he ever thought she was dead.
“All right.” It was better to think, to plan, than to dwell on the events that had led to Robbie’s murder. “What kind of communications are coming up from Arcadia now? Jenny told me that Finch intercepted. Wait.” She paused to catch her breath, went on. “How long has it been?”
“About forty-eight hours.”
“And Central?”
He shrugged. “Ask Finch. I think Central put up more resistance then Jehane expected. It’s kept him busy enough to neglect us for the moment. We’ve kept you well hidden here from Machiko. For now.”
“Min? Min!” Movement blurred the edges of Lily’s vision and then Paisley appeared, triumphantly furtive. “Sure, and glory, but we thought you had found ya kinnas for certain.” She reached past Hawk and grasped one of Lily’s hands in her own tattooed one. “Be it weren’t for Pinto catching you on ya wing as you fell—”
“And here I heard,” interposed Kyosti drily, “that you were the one who ran out on that convenient wing in the middle of all that fire and dragged her inside the shuttle.”
Paisley shrugged, a deprecating gesture. “Be it weren’t much, min. But have you heard? Central surrendered!”
She let go of Lily’s hand and moved away to switch on the com. Abruptly, Jehane’s voice permeated the tiny space.
“—and I am grieved to inform you, citizens, that in this moment of our greatest triumph, we have lost a man without whom we never could have won. Comrade Pero—and, yes, this time indeed Pero is gone, never to return—was murdered in a last act of defiance by Central. Even as we struck against their last stronghold, they sent a traitor into our midst, and he shot Pero.”
A long, potent pause brought about by the tremor of emotion in Jehane’s voice. “He was trying to prevent Pero’s last, greatest act. It is no consolation that this traitor is now dead, that his name will never again be spoken—but remember, citizens, Pero died a martyr to bring you what will prove to be the crowning glory of our triumph. The Formula that even now is being broadcast from every net to every planet, every habitation, in Reft space—”
“Wait.” Tears burned down Lily’s cheeks as she listened. “He’s lying. He never meant to broadcast the formula.”
“Then he was too late. Robbie set it in motion. Jehane can’t stop it now. Although it’s lucky you reminded me that in a place like this, people would still use that kind of gift for their own ends, instead of for the common good. Or I’d never have made the provisions I did.”
“—in every clinic, because this Formula is not a privilege, citizens, to be granted to a few, it is your right, each and every one of you, to—”
“Turn that off,” Lily snapped. Jehane’s voice vanished just as Jenny stormed back in.
“Paisley!” she muttered. “I told you no visitors.”
Paisley shrank back against the couch, seeking protection from Lily even though Lily was basically immobile and completely without strength.
“You’d better go, Paisley,” said Lily gently. “But thank you, and thank Pinto. You saved my life.”
Paisley shrugged, embarrassed. “Be it kinnas returned, min. Weren’t nothing.” She cast a scorching glance at Jenny. “But it be poor o’ her not to even let Pinto in to see how you be, seeing as he were ya one as saved you.”
“Paisley,” Jenny began, warning, but Kyosti intervened.
“She’s right,” he said unexpectedly. “Pinto ought to come in for a moment.”
Jenny glared at him, but acquiesced. Paisley left with a grin.
“The very last thing he did,” Lily murmured.
“That who did?” Jenny asked, coming closer.
“Robbie. It was right to tell him about the Formula. And yet Jehane will get the credit for it. And the martyr he needs to seal his victory. Damn him.” She coughed. But it did not seem to her that Robbie would have blamed her for any part in his death; remembering, back to their days on Arcadia, she wondered if he had not expected—or even hoped—to die for the cause. “And you know,” she continued slowly, realizing only now that it was true, “Jehane would have had to kill him sooner or later, because of what they both are. And if Jehane didn’t, Kuan-yin would have.”
Instead of an answer, she got a sudden influx of company, all of them quiet as they crowded into the room: Paisley, Pinto, Yehoshua, Lia and Gregori, the Mule, Rainbow, Cursive, Diamond, Wei, and Nguyen, and even Blue, looking sullenly pleased to be included in the conspiracy.
“Finch would’a come,” murmured Paisley rebelliously, “but he be on ya comm, and he got to stay there for now.”
“I’ll give you five minutes, collectively,” said Hawk in a tone that no one would dare argue with.
But no one even spoke. They just gazed at her as if they were astonished that she was alive.
“Well?” she snapped when the silence grew long enough that it fueled her with enough energy to transfer the anger she felt at her own actions in leading them to this pass to the people now watching her. “What are you waiting for?”
Everyone looked at everyone else, and then back at her.
“I don’t know, my love,” said Kyosti. “What are we waiting for?”
“You don’t think Jehane isn’t going to track us down the moment he has a free hand to spare? We need this ship.”
“Mutiny,” breathed Jenny. Her eyes lit with sudden glee.
“Yes,” said Lily. “We’ve got no choice. Will you follow me?”
This time the silence was twice as deep and twice as long.
“You know I’m with you,” said Jenny finally, breaking the paralysis that had evidently gripped everyone else. Kyosti had the barest grin on his face.
“Min Ransome!” said Paisley fiercely, unable to restrain herself any longer. “It be wrong o’ you to even think I wouldna’ follow you, down ya haunted way if need be.”
“Need might be,” said Lily. “Because I don’t intend spending the rest of what is evidently going to prove a very long life running from Jehane, even in a fine ship like the Forlorn Hope.” She paused to catch her breath, finding even such a short speech more taxing than she expected, but she had enough energy to find and meet each pair of eyes and, meeting them, read their assent.
“But what else is there to do?” asked Jenny. “Besides turn bootlegger and run?”
Lily looked at Kyosti. He merely looked up at the ceiling, leaving Lily to sigh and regard her ragtag collection of conspirators.
“We’re taking this boat back where she came from.” She grinned, seeing, by their expressions, that it was the last possible alternative they would have thought of.
“Sure,” breathed Paisley, “and glory.”
“But no one has been that way for centuries. No one even knows—” began Yehoshua, and then he faltered. Everyone looked at Kyosti.
“Exactly,” replied Lily, gathering a burst of strength from the sense of anticipation that abruptly charged the air. “Don’t worry. Master Heredes always used to tell me that when you’ve tried every other attack, the one you’re left with, however unlikely, must be the right one.”
“What if it doesn’t work?” asked Jenny, evidently giving up hard on her bootlegging dreams.
Lily smiled. “It has to work. Otherwise you’re dead. And I’m not dead yet, am I?”
“Not for lack of trying,” muttered Pinto.
“Pinto,” she began, suddenly sober. “Your father—”
“Is dead. I know.” He turned and left the room.
“All right,” said Lily decisively, before his departure could cloud anyone’s resolve. “Get back to your posts. Jenny. Yehoshua. Stay.”
They dispersed quickly.
Kyosti went back to a careful examination of her readings. “You’re going to need to rest soon,” he warned.
Lily ignored him. “Jenny. How many people on board can we count on?”
She frowned. “Captain Machiko has rubbed more than our people the wrong way. All the Ridanis on board. Some few others”—she paused to count—“I’d say twenty-three.” Glanced at Yehoshua, as if for confirmation. He nodded.
“Which leaves?”
“Thirty-six supporting the captain. That leaves us with the advantage, I’d say.”
“With a large advantage. Good. Now, to begin with—”
“Lily.” Kyosti laid a hand on her wrist, a soft pressure that seemed far away to her. “You must rest.”
“But Jenny—”
“If Jenny and Yehoshua can’t manage a simple mutiny with these odds, and surprise, on our side, then you’re better off not commandeering this vessel in the first place. I’d estimate that in two hours this boat will be ours.”
Yehoshua chuckled. “Somehow, life never gets dull around you, Lily Heredes.”
“No.” The name no longer fit—and not just because La Belle Dame, and Jehane, and even Paisley, had named her differently in recent days. “Not Heredes. Master Heredes is dead. Any purpose his name had in living on died with Central, and with Jehane’s triumph.” She failed to keep the bitterness from her voice, but her anger was being slowly washed away by a spreading lassitude that methodically engulfed her body as she spoke. “I don’t think he would have wanted me to disinherit my own family forever. Not when they gave me as much as they did. And not when I’ll always be in his.”
Yehoshua looked surprised. “Heredes isn’t your real name?”
She smiled, fighting against her fatigue. “It’s Ransome. Lily Ransome.”
“Lily,” said Kyosti, beginning to sound impatient.
Jenny laughed and rose and snapped a smart, jaunty salute at her recumbent commander. “We’ll wake you up, captain,” she said, half-laughing still, “when the ship is fully at your disposal.”
“Not that soon,” said Kyosti.
Jenny grinned. “Come on, Yehoshua.” She tugged him by one arm from the room.
“There’s too much to do,” insisted Lily, looking up at Kyosti. “You can’t make me sleep.” But even as she said it, she yawned.
“Yes, I can,” replied Hawk coolly from away down a deepening well of distance.
Somewhere, echoing up from the depths, Bach was singing:
Ich will dir mein Herze schenken,
Senke dich, mein Heil, hinein.
Ich will mich in dir versenken,
Ist dir gleich die Welt zu klein,
Ei, so sollst du mir allein
Mehr als Welt und Himmel sein.
I will give my heart to Thee;
sink Thyself in it, my Salvation.
I will submerge myself in Thee.
And if the world is too small for Thee,
ah, then for me alone shalt Thou
be more than world and Heaven.
Lily went to sleep and dreamed of Robbie’s body washing up on a white shore, whole and untouched by the ills of the world.