brother.
Jan nodded a greeting and glanced up at the ceiling lights that alternately shadowed and illuminated his face. 'That could induce epilepsy.'
'How long have you been gone?'
'Since yesterday afternoon. Why?'
'You didn't get my message.'
'No—have you been back?'
'Yes.' Her worry increased, and a feeling more definitely crept into her mind. 'Let's hurry.'
'What's wrong?'
A threat of excitement drifted against her, bringing a tenuous link with Chris. 'Subtwo wouldn't let me tell him—'
Startled, Jan said, 'He didn't throw you out, did he?'
'No. Nothing like that.' Above them, from the edge of the cavern to the center in a rapid spiral, the lights dimmed to half their intensity. 'Oh, damn. Damn.' She began to run.
She could hear Jan behind her, but her attention focused on Chris; when she reached the arc she realized he was not even in the Palace. She stopped and stood with her head down, eyes closed, listening, reaching out through a cacaphonous blend of music.
Just ahead, light-curtains filled the open front of a bar. Mischa slipped between and through their insubstantial forms, following Chris's faint aura. Among purple and green lights she saw him, standing against the wall, facing Subone who slapped him like a child playing snatch, with motions too quick to ward off. Mischa pushed the capsule of sleep far down in her pocket and buttoned the flap over it. Laughing, Subone spoke to Draco, who laughed in turn. His face set in anger, Chris pushed himself upright and moved away from the wall. He pulled his knife and snapped out the blade. Mischa hesitated, to watch him, feeling pride in the person he had been and might be again.
He said something to Subone. Mischa could not hear him, but she saw and felt Subone's rage. He reached for Chris's throat. Chris brought his knife up and slashed the pseudosib's bare forearm. Taunted by blood, the blade flashed ruby-red. Subone shrieked. Mischa could see from where she stood that the wound was minor.
She knew what was going to happen before Subone reached inside his tunic. Chris could have fought on even terms. He was good; he had been good.
Mischa cried out and sprang toward them, but they did not hear her. Subone's weapon was a laser lance. Her reflexes took over. She threw her knife.
Fire seared her from shoulder to hip. She heard Subone, still screaming, as she collapsed.
Through the obscuring mists of soft color, Jan saw the flash of Subone's weapon beyond Mischa, and when she fell he cried out, believing she had been hit. He was vaguely aware that Subone had fallen as well, but the odor of seared flesh overwhelmed his senses. Clenching his teeth, he knelt beside Mischa and turned her over, afraid of what he would see. But somehow, aside from an abrasion on her cheek where she had fallen, she was unharmed. Her eyelids flickered; he felt her muscles tense as she collected herself. She stared up blankly, then intelligence leaked back into her green eyes. 'Jan.' She struggled up, searching; she froze, and made an inarticulate, involuntary, keening sound of despair. Jan followed her gaze. He saw the young man lying sprawled in a scarlet and purple shroud of flowing lights. Jan could see the edge of a terrible burn rimmed by the charred and melted fabric of his shirt. Mischa stumbled to her feet, using Jan as a support. He helped her. 'You're not hurt?'
'Not. burned,' she said. 'Get out of here, Jan. I don't know what's going to happen.'
But he followed her toward Subone, who lay bleeding on the floor, groaning in pain and rage. Draco knelt over him, applying pressure to the wound high in Subone's chest. Mischa fell to her knees beside the young man. Subone lunged for his weapon. Jan kicked Subone's hand, hard enough to hurt and bruise, not hard enough to crack bones, and picked the lance up himself. He ripped out the power pack and crushed it under the heel of his boot.
'You are a fool,' Subone said.
'And you?' Jan calmed a slow surge of anger and adrenalin.
'You jeopardize your position.'
Jan said nothing.
'He's alive, Jan,' Mischa whispered. 'Gods, he's alive.'
On one knee beside them, Jan took the young man's wrist and felt for a pulse among narrow frail-feeling bones. It was light, rapid, irregular. A crystal knife, held loosely, slid from limp fingers. The fight had not been between Mischa and Subone but between Subone and this boy. The smell of burned flesh and vaporized plastic hung heavy around him. Jan saw he could do nothing himself. Blankly, Mischa reached out and picked up the knife.
'I'll go for help,' Jan said.
Suddenly, harshly, Mischa laughed. 'Subtwo won't let you.'
'When he finds out, I'll worry.' He wondered briefly if Subone's actions might complete the pseudosibs' estrangement.
Mischa stood up. 'He already knows.' She gazed into the multicolored mists, the set of her shoulders, her face, her eyes showing no spirit, no hope, only defeat.
Agitated, the curtains swirled, and Subtwo burst through them, trailing wisps of their substance. He ignored all but his pseudosib. 'What have they done?' Kneeling, he shouldered Draco away, and supported Subone in his arms. His eyes glistened with unshed tears of sympathy or actual pain. Subone sagged back, his expression set in suffering, weakened by loss of blood, or, Jan thought bitterly, arranged in a pose.
'I told you she'd do you no good.'
With pure human hatred, Subtwo glanced at Mischa. 'Everything will be all right,' he said to Subone. His voice was a parody. His face became a mask of tender concern, the unfelt reaction of a man insufficiently experienced in tragedy or life. 'I had hopes for you,' he said to Mischa. 'You could have gone anywhere and done anything.'
'It's finished, then,' Mischa said. 'Because he's committed murder, and he wronged us—but you can't split yourself off from him.'
'Yes.'
Mischa looked down at the body by her feet. 'I can't split myself off from Chris, either. Let me take him out of here.'
Subone revived, grasping at Subtwo's shoulder. 'Don't let them go.'
'How much more do you want to hurt him?' Mischa cried.
'He's dead,' Subone growled. 'I want you.'
The scene froze, like a dream going wrong and shading into nightmare. But dreams. dreams could be changed; Jan had stepped from the edges of his dreams to their centers, from the part of onlooker to that of director, and ordered the characters here and there, even characters like Subone, pure distillations of the self- centered unconscious. But he could not do that in reality; Jan understood that his own adventure was reality, or must become so. He could only direct himself, and he must: he must act rather than observe, make the decisions of his life rather than allow life to flow around him.
Jan spoke to Subtwo. 'He's not like you any longer. You don't have to match him and he doesn't deserve your loyalty.'
Subtwo said nothing, though the tiny lines in his forehead deepened. Subone, as if bored, said to Draco, 'Take him out.'
Jan allowed Draco to shove him, once. Then he braced himself, and when Draco, encouraged, rushed him, Jan turned, grabbed his arm and the front of his shirt, bent into his path, and threw him over his shoulder to the floor. Not knowing how to land, Draco fell hard and lay stunned. Jan had not helped him land, as it was possible to do when performing the ippon sei o nagi. Now he waited, in case Draco revived and reached for a weapon.
Subtwo faced Mischa warily, for the knife glittered hi her hand. 'You understand, don't you?' he said to her, as though asking forgiveness.
'I think so.' Her voice held equal regret. 'I should have killed him.'
'No!' He cut his protest short. 'No. That would have sealed our enmity.' He gestured to Chris. 'Take him, and leave.' He looked sadly to Jan. 'You
align yourself against me. I can no longer keep my promise to your friend.'
