Changer of Worlds

There was no expression at all on Jeremy’s face. His pale gray eyes, staring at Anton, were as flat as iron plates. Slowly, he swiveled his head and looked at Cathy.

“Tell me again,” he rasped.

“You’re too fucking smart for your own good,” she snickered. She beamed upon Anton. “He’s such a clever little man. But he always has to poke the wild animals, and sometimes he forgets to use a long enough stick.” Her smile was very approving. Very warm, in fact. “Congratulations, Anton. It’s nice to see him get bitten for a change.”

“The reminder was good enough,” rasped Jeremy. “I don’t need the whole song and dance.”

“Yes, you do,” retorted Cathy forcefully.

Jeremy ignored her. He was back to staring at Anton with those flat, flat eyes. Suddenly, Anton was reminded that Jeremy X, whatever impish exterior he chose to project, was also one of the galaxy’s deadliest men.

For a moment, he began to utter some sort of reassurance. But then, moved by his innate stubbornness and his own cold fury, he bit back the words and simply returned the stare with one of his own. Which, if it was not exactly ruthless, also indicated that he was not a man who intimidated easily, if at all.

Anton heard Cathy suck in a breath. In his peripheral vision, he saw Robert Tye’s sudden stillness. But his eyes never left Jeremy’s.

And then, after perhaps three seconds, the moment passed. Depth seemed to return to Jeremy’s gaze, and the little man leaned back in his chair.

“Ah, but you wouldn’t, Captain. Would you, now? It’s that highland sense of honor moves you. You’d keep the knowledge that there was an opposition amongst the Peeps to yourself, and not pass it on to your superiors.”

Anton snorted. “We’ve known for years that there was disaffection among the Havenites.”

Jeremy’s gaze didn’t waver. After a moment, Anton looked away. “But, yeah, this is the first time there’s ever been any concrete indication that it extends into SS. And the first time—given the relatively small size of the Peep contingent here—that we could probably pinpoint the individuals.”

He drew in a deep breath, swelling his chest and squaring his shoulders. Then: “From the highlands, as you say.”

“A life for a life, Captain,” said Jeremy softly.

Anton understood the obscure reference at once. For some reason, that made him feel oddly warm- hearted toward the man across the table from him. A concrete sort of fellow. Much like himself, whatever other differences separated them.

“Yes,” he murmured. “The daughter for the mother, and I’ll take the knowledge to the grave.”

Jeremy nodded solemnly. “Good enough.” And now he was back to being the imp. “And good it is, boyo! Because it’ll be those selfsame wretched rotten Peeps who’ll get your daughter. Not you or me.”

Anton goggled him.

Imp. “Oh, yes—for a certainty. We’ve other fish to fry.”

Goggled him.

Damned imp.“But it’s as plain as the nose on your face, man! They can get close to her, through the manhunt. Girlhunt, I should say. We can’t.”

Anton was clenching his fists. “Then what—”

Jeremy shook his head. “And to think he was so shrewd not a moment ago. Think it through, Captain. The rotten wretched Peeps—Peep, I should say—can get the girl. But that’s not to say he can get her out.”

Again, it didn’t take Anton more than a few seconds to make all the connections. He turned his head and gazed at Cathy.

“And that’s why you’re here. To distract them, while”—a stubby forefinger shot out from his fist, pointing at Jeremy—“he settles his accounts.”

“Long overdue accounts,” murmured Jeremy. The flat, flat eyes were back.

Anton leaned back in his chair, pressing himself against the table with the heels of his hands. Slowly, the fists opened.

“That’ll work,” he announced. “If the Peep’s good enough, at least.”

Jeremy shrugged. “Don’t imagine he’s really all that good. But he doesn’t have to be, now does he, Captain? Just determined enough.”

Helen

Not for the first time, Helen bitterly regretted the loss of her watch. She had no idea how long it took her and her two companions to finally make their way into Berry’s “special place.” Hours, for a certainty—manyhours. Just as Berry had feared, making the upward climb—and, even more so, the later descent—had been extremely difficult. Berry, for all that she had tried heroically, had simply been too injured and feeble to make it on her own. And her brother, for all his own valiant efforts, too small and weak to be of much assistance. So, for all practical purposes, Helen had been forced to make what would have been an arduous enough trip for herself burdened by the weight of another strapped to her back.

By the time they finally got to their destination, she was more exhausted than she had ever been in her life. If it hadn’t been for the years she had spent in Master Tye’s rigorous training, she knew she would never have made it at all.

Vaguely, with fatigue-induced lightheadedness, she tried to examine her surroundings. But it was almost impossible to see anything. The two small lanterns they had taken with them from the vagabonds’ lean-to were too feeble to provide much illumination.

They were resting on a large pallet under a lean-to. Both the pallet and the lean-to, Lars told her, had been built by him and his sister after their mother disappeared (some unspecified time since—months ago, Helen judged) and they had found this place. The lean-to nestled against some sort of ancient stone staircase. It was the buttress of the staircase, actually. They had come down very wide stairs to a platform, where the stairs branched at right angles to either side. At Berry’s command, Helen had taken the left branch and then, at the bottom, curled back to the right. There, thankfully, she had found the lean-to and finally been able to rest.

Now, lying exhausted on the pallet, Berry nestled against her right side. A moment later, dragging a tattered and filthy blanket out of the semi-darkness, Lars spread it over them. A moment later, he was nestled against Helen’s left.

Helen whispered her thanks. She didn’t really need the blanket for warmth. In the depths of the Loop, the temperature never seemed to vary beyond a narrow range, which was quite comfortable. But there was something primordially comforting about being under that sheltering cover, even as filthy as it was.

No filthier than me! she thought, half-humorously. What I wouldn’t give for a shower!

But that thought drew her perilously close to thoughts of her father and their warm apartment. Always warm, that apartment had been. Not so much in terms of physical temperature—in truth, her father preferred to keep the climate settings rather low—but in terms of the heart.

Oh, Daddy!

Summoning what strength remained, Helen drove the thought away. She could not afford that weakening. Not now. But, as it fled, some residue of the thought remained. And Helen realized, as she lay there in the darkness cuddling two new-found children of her own, that she finally understood her father. Understood, for the first time, how courageously he had struggled, all those years, not to let his own loss mangle his daughter. And