Serpents in the Garden Read online

  “They’re too close!” he cried.

  “I’m on it!” Rowland answered. He was a few feet closer than Kirk to the edge. Both men took off sprinting toward Tyree and the others, but with his head start and long legs, Rowland got there first.

  “Tyree!” Kirk called again. This time, the chief heard. He turned to seek out the source of the shout and took a couple of steps toward Kirk, away from the edge. But as he did, people around him shifted course to go behind him, taking them closer to it. The ore cart shifted again, swaying a little, and so did the people near it. Kirk raced toward them, crying, “Get away from the edge!”

  Rowland, still out in front, herded some toward Kirk. At the last moment, out of time, he simply grabbed the last two people—a Freeholder and a Victor—and hurled them clear.

  And then the ground gave way.

  The ore cart slid into Rowland, and he went over the side.

  Kirk rushed past Tyree. Maybe there was a pathway just below, a ledge. Something.

  But no. He looked down until the pit wall disappeared in the darkness below. Over the cacophony of voices and footsteps, fighting and gunshots, shouting and tears, he couldn’t even hear the impact when Rowland hit bottom.

  Twenty-Nine

  Kirk stood at the edge, peering down into darkness that thickened with distance, from a flickering, shadowed gray into deepest, purest black as formless as the void. The battle swirled around him, forgotten. After a while, he was aware of Tyree at his side.

  “I am sorry, James,” Tyree said.

  “I . . . thank you, Tyree.”

  “He was a brave man. He saved many lives.”

  “That was his calling. All of us in—in my organization. That’s why we do what we do. To help others. To advance the cause of freedom, of knowledge. To save lives.”

  “That is a noble thing.”

  Despite his sorrow, Kirk offered a dry chuckle. “Noble? That’s not why we do it. I think it’s because that’s what we can do. The contribution we can make. We aren’t necessarily the smartest, the strongest, the most admirable. We’re just human beings. But we feel obliged to give something back . . . to the world, to the galaxy . . . that created us. That gave us so much. We do what we can with the gifts we possess.”

  Tyree put a sympathetic hand on Kirk’s shoulder. “No one could ask for more. Or expect more.”

  “Thanks,” Kirk said again.

  “James . . .”

  Tyree was trying to draw his attention to something. Kirk had been lost in reflection, weighted with sorrow. He tried to focus on his surroundings.

  “I fear this battle spells doom,” Tyree said. “For my people.”

  “Why?”

  “I am told that Apella’s foreign masters have been roused.”

  “The Klingons?”

  “They are coming to finish the fight. Freeholders still stream from the hills, but they have no chance against the Victors and the Klingons.”

  “Can we stop them? The Freeholders? Have them retreat, to fight another day?”

  Even as he asked the question, Kirk knew the answer. The battle had been joined. It would be impossible, at this juncture, to separate the combatants. Maybe some Freeholders could be dissuaded, but most would see their friends, their kin, in danger and would rush into the fray.

  When Klingon warriors sided with the Victors, a fight that was already lopsided would become, as Tyree suggested, a slaughter.

  “Apella,” Kirk said. “We have to get to him, make him understand that the Klingons are the real enemy.”

  “Do you think we can?”

  “We won’t know unless we try.”

  Kirk took off at a run, making his way through the melee. Tyree ran beside him. Together they dodged blades and bullets, fists and clubs, each sometimes helping the other weave through or around hot spots.

  They soon reached the mine offices. The same Victor guards who had been there when Tyree and Kirk had fled were still clustered near the door. Apella remained on the deck, watching the conflagration below.

  Kirk and his friend rushed past the guards, who made no move to stop them. Apella stood with his hands on the railing, but at the sound of Kirk and Tyree approaching, he slowly faced them.

  “I did not think you would return,” he said.

  “This has got to end, Apella,” Kirk said.

  “What does?” The governor seemed barely present, as if his attention was still on the tableaux to which he had turned his back.

  “This whole thing. The killing, the slave labor. You and Tyree aren’t enemies, or you weren’t a short while ago. The Klingons set you against each other for their own ends. They’re using you as much as you’re using the Freeholders. It’s time you all threw off your yokes and claimed your planet for yourselves, instead of living in thrall to a more powerful race. You’ll need the Freeholders for that—as allies, not servants.”

  “I . . . what can I do?” Apella asked. “I am only one man.”

  “The Victors look to you for leadership. A leader can’t just be in charge when things are easy. It’s when things get tough that you find out what you’re made of. If you are truly their leader, you’ll prove it now, when they really need you. You’ve got to stop the fighting. Once those Klingons get involved, it’ll be a bloodbath.”

  “If I could, Kirk, I would. It’s too late.”

  Kirk couldn’t tell how much of Apella’s refusal was simply acceptance of the fact that the Klingons were the true power here, and he little more than a convenient figurehead. Probably most of it.

  And Kirk knew that he bore more than a little responsibility for the situation. If he had done more in the first place to keep the Klingons away from Neural, none of this might have happened. He believed he’d been right to supply the Hill People with weapons, although he had not foreseen all the consequences. With the Klingons arming the Victors, the balance of power the flintlocks provided had probably saved lives, kept the Freeholders safe until his return.

  No, not safe. Safer, though.

  What they needed now, the Freeholders and the Victors, was a reminder that they were natural allies, not enemies. But turning them—in the midst of a pitched battle—from foes to friends would be next to impossible. Diplomacy took months or years, and even then bad blood could remain in many hearts, for lifetimes or longer.

  The admiral had to do it in minutes, or the Freeholders might be nothing more than a memory. Even if some survived, it would be generations before trust could be reestablished.

  He needed to stop the fighting and convince both sides that only peace offered Neural a chance.

  He needed a distraction. A big one. Something that would give Freeholders and Victors alike a common cause.

  If he had a starship, he could create one.

  He didn’t.

  But he might be able to get his hands on one.

  “Apella, have you told the Klingons what we talked about? That you and the Freeholders are in agreement, that they need to leave?”

  “No,” Apella said. “I thought we should all discuss it together.”

  Kirk agreed, but there wasn’t time for that.

  The Klingons had a ship—a freighter, not a battle cruiser—but they’d never let Kirk borrow it.

  Which just meant he wouldn’t ask permission.

  “Apella, listen,” he said. “I’ve got an idea . . .”

  * * *

  “Joslen!” Nyran cried again.

  He ducked under a fist aimed at his face, skidded briefly on the ground, but then his feet found purchase and he darted toward where he had last seen her.

  When Nyran reached that spot, though, he couldn’t find her. He saw two people he knew from Freehold, one a woman who had lived two houses away his whole life, the other a newcomer who might have been from Joslen’s town, or one of the others, lying dead on the ground in pools of their own blood. Beyond them, a small clutch of Victor men headed toward the trees, rifles at the ready.

  Nyran’s heart pound
ed in his throat. For a terrible moment, he had thought that Joslen might be under one of the women, but then realized that the woman’s arm was pinned beneath her and the hand sticking out from her side was her own. He didn’t think Joslen could have gone past him—which meant she was back there, in the darkness of the trees.

  The trees toward which the armed, murderous Victors trudged.

  She’d had a couple of minutes. Perhaps she’d gotten away.

  But what if she hadn’t? What if she was there, hunkered down in the trees, unarmed?

  Nyran was unarmed as well. But he had to do something, had to draw the attention of those men away from the tree line.

  At the moment, he could only think of one way.

  He reached down and scooped up the biggest rock he could find, then threw it at the Victors. In the dark he couldn’t see where it hit, but one of them cried out. “What was that?” another one asked.

  “It was me!” Nyran shouted. He ran to one side, snatched up another stone, hurled it, and kept running, away from the trees. The Victors gave chase. One of them fired his gun. Nyran heard the report and the bullet raking through dirt and grass, but well away from him. Just the same, he zigzagged a couple of times, then started to loop back around toward where he had first encountered them. He didn’t know if they were all following—it was too dark to see for sure, and he didn’t want to spend a lot of time trying. But if only some were, Nyran hoped to get them shooting at each other instead of him.

  But that hadn’t happened yet when he ran into someone in the darkness. It was a man, solid as a tree, and quick. Nyran crashed into him and fell back, surprised and stunned by the impact, but before he could right himself, the man got a hand on his shirt and reeled him in, then clamped another around the back of his neck. “Got him!” the man called out. Nyran recognized the voice. “Keran?”

  “Hang on to him!” one of the pursuers shouted.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got the little bastard!”

  Nyran tried to wriggle out of Keran’s grasp, but he shifted his grip and hung on. “Keran, why are you doing this? You’re one of us!” Nyran complained.

  “Let’s just say I know the winning side when I see it.”

  Arguing was pointless, Nyran thought. He grabbed Keran’s arm and pushed, trying to snap it, or if not that at least to make him let go. Instead, Keran held him all the tighter. Finally, with the others getting closer, Nyran threw a series of savage kicks at his legs and groin. Keran blocked as best he could, but finally his grip loosened enough for Nyran to break free.

  Before Nyran had taken three steps, though, another pair of strong arms grabbed him, and then yet another. “He’s ours!” one of his captors called.

  “Watch out for the pup’s feet!”

  “He won’t live long enough to use ’em!”

  Again, Nyran tried to twist and writhe out of the hands that held him, and when that didn’t work, he lashed out this way and that with fists and feet. But the men holding him—Keran and a Victor Nyran had never seen—were ready for that and stayed clear. Nyran saw the glint of steel in Keran’s fist and redoubled his efforts. Still twisting, Nyran felt a blade slice through his shirt and graze his ribs. “Hey!” he cried.

  “Hold still, you little runt bastard!” Keran stabbed at him again, but Nyran dodged the blade.

  He wouldn’t be able to do so for long.

  His breath tore from his chest in ragged gasps. The men holding him huffed and struggled to hang on. The knife jabbed at him again, this time finding its target in the flesh of Nyran’s waist, at the side, just above his right hip. It tore, and he cried out in pain and yanked away and it tore more going out. Nyran screamed.

  He felt the hot gush of blood down his side. Another strike would surely kill him, even if he didn’t bleed to death from this one.

  Somewhere out there, in the night, was Joslen. If he had distracted the men with guns long enough for her to escape, he was glad of it. The fact that he would never see her again hurt, though, perhaps more than the blade itself had. His legs buckled beneath him, and only the men still hanging on to his arms kept him from falling.

  Then he heard a sharp sound, but distantly, as though he were underwater. He recognized it as the sound of a rifle, but he couldn’t determine how near, or from where.

  But one of the men holding him suddenly made a small animal sound and let go. The other man swore, and the gun cracked again, three times, and Nyran saw the flashes. Then Keran also released him and crumpled to the ground.

  Nyran was free. But he was weakening rapidly, and in the dark he couldn’t tell who was shooting at them. He could be next, shot where he stood, but if he moved he might be walking into the path of the next bullet.

  His legs settled things by collapsing underneath him. He hit the ground with his arms flung out, one of them landing across the fallen form of one of the men, whose breathing was uneven and who pawed at the earth, as if trying to dig his own grave.

  Lying there, unable to rise, Nyran heard another shot ring out, another man drop. Then somebody approached—multiple somebodies, in fact. Nyran could see only vague outlines, dark against dark, but he could tell they carried rifles.

  “Nyran?” a familiar voice asked the night. “Did I hear your voice?”

  “Joslen!” he replied with as much strength as he could muster. “Joslen, I’m here!”

  She broke from the others and ran to his side, crouching close. Her hands touched him and he winced. “You’re hurt, Nyran!”

  “But I’m better now,” he said, managing to clutch her hand. He held it tight, not sure he would ever be able to let go. Or want to. He wanted to see the world—but he was afraid that however crowded it might be, it would always feel empty without Joslen beside him. “I’m so much better,” he said, and he was.

  Thirty

  At Kirk’s urging, Apella went back onto his deck overlooking the pit. Chances were, no one would hear him over the fray.

  But he tried. Kirk had to give him that. “People of Victory!” Apella shouted. “My people! My friends, please listen!”

  No one paid any attention. On the broad, flat space around the pit, Victor fought Freeholder. A few Klingons stood back, watching from a safe distance, but more were joining them.

  “May I?” Tyree asked.

  Apella took a step back and Tyree came to the rail. “Hill People!” he called. His voice was naturally louder than Apella’s, and he put everything he had into it. “Freeholders! Stop fighting! The Victors are not our enemies.”

  Kirk watched the Klingons, off to the side. They appeared intent on Tyree, and possibly concerned.

  Apella joined Tyree at the railing and draped his arm over the other man’s shoulders. “Victors! See us, standing together. Tyree of the Hill People, and me, your beloved governor! Remember how long we lived in peace! Remember how we cooperated in the hunt, in growing crops! Remember how Hill People and Villagers, as we were known then, married one another! They are not our enemies and we are not theirs! We have lost our way, but we can find it again!”

  More people were listening, now. Gunfire hadn’t entirely ceased, but it had slowed. Freeholders and Victors alike gazed up toward the deck. In the uneven light of the fires, it was hard to see many faces, but the ones Kirk could make out looked confused or thoughtful.

  “Keep going,” he urged. “You’re getting through.”

  “My friends!” Tyree called. “We lived here as slaves, but no longer! Now we are free! The Victors, too, lived under the thumbs of others. They were turned against us by those called Klingons.”

  At that, Kirk noted, the Klingons looking on engaged one another in quick conversation.

  “You know who the Klingons are!” Tyree went on. He pointed toward the group Kirk had been watching. “Them! They, not the Victors, are our enemies. Those are the ones who would make us work until we dropped. Not for the Victors, but for them, to fuel their own civilization!”

  Even more were listening now. Most of the fi
ghting had stopped. Anxiously, the Klingons looked back toward the spaceport, from which more of their numbers were coming all the time.

  “Victors and Freeholders are once again brothers and sisters!” Apella cried. “Neural is our world, not theirs!”

  At that, a roar went up from the crowd. “Our world!” people shouted. Freeholders and Victors alike joined in. “Ours, not theirs!”

  Kirk was glad for the temporary truce. It might not last more than a few minutes. As soon as one Freeholder with a grudge spotted the Victor he hated, the fighting would resume. And the Klingons had weapons that could cut through Victors and Freeholders alike. If the mob turned on them, even though outnumbered, they would have the advantage.

  In a bloodbath, there were no real winners. Only the losers and the dead.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”

  * * *

  Kirk, Apella, and Tyree hurried toward the smelter. On the way, Kirk told Tyree what he needed to do. When Tyree understood, he peeled off and strode confidently into the building while Kirk and Apella veered down the path Kirk knew well, from the smelter to the spaceport.

  The unlikely allies slowed to a brisk walk as they neared it, and Apella took the lead position. Two Klingon guards stood at the spaceport’s open gate. From where they stood, they couldn’t see the fighting, but Kirk guessed they would rather be there than here.

  “We need to see Krell,” Apella told them as he approached. “He has summoned me to the ship.”

  The guards obviously knew Apella, and recognized Kirk, but nothing was normal about this night, and they spread out to block the way.

  “Let us pass,” Apella said. “Krell would not want to be kept waiting!”

  “I will ask Krell,” one of the guards said, looking in the ship’s direction though it couldn’t be seen from here. “With all the trouble tonight, I would not take—”

  Kirk took advantage of the Klingon’s distraction. He threw a powerful chop to the back of the guard’s neck, and in the same instant, kicked the back of his left knee. The guard sagged and Kirk snatched the disruptor pistol from his hand and turned it on him. The weapon wailed, its beam caught the guard, and the Klingon lost consciousness and pitched forward onto his face.