In the Lion’s Mouth

The young man in the chlamys said, I didn’t trust him, either. Something in his carriage, something in his expression.

“What do you say, Pollyanna?” Donovan asked. “You always see the silver lining in every dark cloud.”

The girl in the chiton was sitting on the floor next to the bunk. And you see the dark cloud around every silver lining, she said. This will all work out. Wait and see.

Donovan expected that the smuggler would return that night, using the secret panel through which he had originally entered, so Inner Child and the Brute kept watch through the scarred man’s half-slit eyes and listened through his ears. Some explanation would be forthcoming for the failure to act as promised, but Donovan was no longer sure he was unhappy with that failure. Some instinct had urged the Brute to protect their captor. The Brute was not a keen thinker, but his instincts were sound.

He heard a clatter behind the wall and pressed his ear against the bulkhead to make it out more keenly. It came at intervals, distant at first, toward the rear of the ship; but it seemed to draw closer, come adjacent to him, and then pause. There was no sound for a time and the impression slowly grew within the heart of Donovan buigh that something lurked on the other side of the panel; and that this something sensed his presence.

Suddenly uneasy, Donovan pulled away from the panel as far as the straps would allow. He exhaled as softly as he could, made no move, no sound.

Moments dripped by.

Then there was a clattering by his head and a moment later intermittent impacts receding down the hidden passageway. The scarred man began to breathe normally. The sounds reminded the Silky Voice of a bouncing ball—if the ball were metallic and could hesitate from one bounce to the next.

A little later that evening, Inner Child heard the same sounds returning. He passed the sensations on to the Sleuth to puzzle over and continued to wait for the smuggler to appear.

But no one came to them that night, nor all the next day, nor the night after that.

He wondered if the smuggler had acted on his own after all. Maybe he had ambushed Ravn and taken control of the ship, and was content now to keep Donovan strapped into his bunk for the foreseeable future.

But on the third day, after the ship had entered Megranomic space and had begun the Newtonian crawl toward the Palisades Parkway, it was Ravn Olafsdottr who came to release him from his bonds. “Coome now, sweet,” she said, “you moost be hoongry.” She unlocked one hand, gave him the key, and stepped back.

“It’s a psychological trick,” the Fudir told her as he worked the key into the locks that held the remaining straps together. “That Alabaster accent is a comic’s affectation. Most of us in the League have been conditioned to regard hooters as flighty. That’s not exactly fair to the Alabastrines, but it helps if your adversary underestimates your wit.”

“You very clever, friend. How transparent this unworthy one, that you see through her so!”

“And the Manjrin makes you seem sinister.” Donovan, now loosened from his straps, stood up and rubbed his arms. Olafsdottr held out her hand and, after a moment, Donovan laid the key in it. “You didn’t have to pull them so tight, you know.”

“Yes,” she said gravely. “I did.”

“Anything interesting happen while I was tied up?”

Olafsdottr cocked her head nearly sideways. “Should something have?”

“Never mind.” He stepped past her. “I’m hungry. Let’s do lunch.” He didn’t wait to see if she followed, or if she held her teaser aimed at the small of his back.

The scarred man rustled his own lunch: daal and baked beans and sautéed mushrooms, with scrambled eggs and cold, fatty bacon drawn from the cold well in the pantry. Olafsdottr recoiled from this concoction when he brought it to the refectory.

“Why?” asked the Fudir. “How do you break your fast?”

Olafsdottr toyed with her teaser, remaining out of reach of her prisoner. “What any sensible one eats. A soft-boiled egg enthroned on a cup with its large end sheared off, a small plate of fruits of varied colors—green melon, yellow pineapple, white wintermelon—arranged as to best effect. A cup of pressed coffee thick enough to stand a spoon upright.”

The Fudir regarded her curiously. “I would think espresso would be the last thing you would need. No wonder you always seem so wired. You should try Terran food someday.”

She regarded his lunch with disfavor. “Perhaps. Someday.”

“So, it’s been a quiet couple of days?”

“With you bound in bunk, how could it be other?”

Well, said the Sleuth internally, Rigardo-ji would not have taken her on by himself. He’s lying doggo.

As from a distant room, Inner Child heard the muffled sound that had bounced past the scarred man’s head several times during his detention. A glance at the courier showed that she, too, heard.

“What’s that noise?” the Fudir asked, twisting his head as if to locate it. “Something wrong with the ship? Maybe we ought to lay up for repairs here in Megranome.”

Olafsdottr smiled slowly, held it for a moment, then allowed it to fade as slowly. “Always carping the diem, my sweet. Perhaps you have set something rolling about the ship to convince me to stop for repairs and so give you an opportunity to escape. There would be no such escape, but I will withhold the opportunity and save you the frustration.”

“I did all this while I was tied up?” Donovan said.

“Nu-nu-nu, sweet. Great deeds await you on Henrietta. Tomorrow,” she added with a sniff, “make a different meal. This one stinks.”

But the mal odour lingered all day and the circulators could do nothing to dissipate it. By the next day’s breakfast both Donovan and Olafsdottr had drawn the same conclusion, very nearly at the same time.

“Not your food,” said Olafsdottr. “Stink come elsewhere.”

Donovan wrinkled his nose. “There is something familiar about it.”

“Agreed. But the nose is the most easily deceived of organs. It remembers well, but will not reveal those memories. Does not one of your shards have memory?”

Donovan was not sure how much Olafsdottr knew of his condition, but saw no reason to deny it. “The Pedant. But he remembers facts, not sensations.”

The Confederal sniffed. “Perhaps that which broke loose has caused something to burn out. Yet, it does not have the tang of burning.”

“It has the smell of rot. Perhaps the protein vats have gone bad.”

Olafsdottr viewed him with suspicion. “If you have sabotaged our food supply, it will be a long, hungry time to Henrietta. You very naughty boy, slip between the quanta of my notice.”

“We could check the vats.”

“We? I should let you near the vats?”

“Because, darling, you won’t go check them yourself while leaving me free run of the ship.”

The Confederal stood upright from her post at the doorway. “Could tie you up again, but too much bother. Put away breakfast things and come with me, and we see what new surprise you prepare.”

The protein vats were hermetically sealed. In them grew mounds of flesh cloned from highly regarded ancestors known as “esteemed cells.” The judicious metering of flavorings and odorants imparted the likeness and even the texture of poultry and pork, of fish and beef, of legume and root. “Like begets like,” chemist-wallahs sang, and so, fed upon wastes, the “mother” deep in the heart of each vessel enrobed itself in tissues like unto itself, to be shaved off, harvested, pressed, pumped to the molder, and served.

The vat room was inboard of the alfven drivers and forward of the impulse cage. The space was cramped and pantry-cool. Despite the seals, odors slipped through the seams and joints and teased the nose with the rich, earthy scent of potato and carrot, with the iron aroma of beef, with the dank stench of fish.

Beneath it all the sweetish smell of something else.

The ship’s architect had not supposed that pilots en route would have much reason to crawl around the vat room. Fresh bulk canisters were installed via external cargo doors at farmers’ markets at the hoop stations. But neither was the room nonnegotiable, since a pilot might need on occasion to refasten a hose or hand-close a valve. Olafsdottr eased matters a bit by reducing the strength of the gravity grids in the vat room by two-thirds, but she still crowded close behind him.

The stink grew worse behind the fish vat, and this was not due entirely to the faux-catfish accumulating inside it. Squeezing between it and the neighboring legume vat, Donovan spied one of the smuggler’s secret rooms, now wide open and lit. He paused in his contemplation to consider what he might tell his captor.

Knowledge is power, said the Pedant. Keep secret what we know.

On the other hand, said the Silky Voice, there are tactical benefits to knowing that your opponent knows what you know.

Ow, Silky! My head hurts.

It may need all of us together to get through this, said the young man in the chlamys. That right, Sleuth?

Some data are still lacking. Add the facts together and there is still a hole in the middle, but …

“Ya, but.” The Terran withdrew from his position and sat under Olafsdottr’s calculating gaze. “What is it, my sweet?” she said. “You can tell Ravn.”

Donovan turned to her. “Follow me,” he said, “but keep your eyes peeled for someone else. We’re not alone on this ship.”

“Ah. I had begun to wonder.”

There was a torque wrench clipped to the fish vat for use in turning valves. Olafsdottr said nothing while he unfastened it, and that silent acquiescence to his arming was the loudest thing the Confederal had said so far.

“This is a smuggler’s ship,” the Fudir said, “and it’s honeycombed with secret rooms, passages, and caches. When you hijacked it, the smuggler was aboard, drunk, in one of those rooms. Probably this one. He was afraid to act alone—”

“A man of much wisdom, then.”

“So he solicited my help to retake the ship.”

“And, of coorse, you tendered it. Ooh. I knew you had been a nooty buoy. What befell, then, seeing I am still captain of your fate?”

“He said he knew of a weapon aboard. Something the People of Foreganger were sending to assassinate the Molnar over a bit of piracy and massacre—”

Olafsdottr snorted. “The difference between the People’s Navy and the Cynthian pirates is but the number and quality of the ships at their disposal. But say on.”

“I was supposed to distract you, and he would shoot you from behind.”

Donovan did not elaborate on that and waited to see how the Confederal would react.

Olafsdottr regarded him with the stillness of a serpent. The white of her eyes and teeth, so prominent against her coal-black skin, took on some of the seeming of ice. “So,” she said at last, and patted him on the cheek. “You are a good buoy, after all. When all is said and done, and the struggle is ended, I will personally escort you home and see that you are buried with great honor.” She gestured with her teaser. “Lead on.”

Much became clear when Donovan slipped behind the vats and entered the secret room. It was a small room, but contained a chair and table as well as an open safe. The Fudir thought it might have been used as a sort of stateroom by smuggled personages.

I thought the smell was familiar, said the Silky Voice. The Brute and Inner Child immediately assumed guardian positions, listening at the ears, watching through the corners of the eyes.

Rigardo-ji Edelwasser lay sprawled on his back on the floor, arms splayed, mouth agape and bloody, as if he had been punched in the teeth by an iron fist. The wall behind the chair was spattered with blood, and bone, and bits of brain. On the table before the chair stood open a standard bushel-sized shipping container, and beside it a beautifully carved wooden chest, also open.

The chest was Peacock orangewood, from which skilled knifework had brought out vines and fruits and other figures. The interior was lined with silk over shaped foam dunnage, but it was not clear from the shape what it had once held.

Olafsdottr had crowded into the room behind Donovan and, like him, made no move to cotton her nose against the smell. “How long has he lain here?” she asked.

“By the odor and bloating, the Pedant says, four days.”

Olafsdottr nodded slowly. “And now you know why he did not appear at the ambush. A good thing too, for I think he would have botched it.”

Donovan turned and looked at her. “Why do you say that?”

She pointed to the empty box. “He came to get the weapon and managed to kill himself with it. Such mishandling does not lend confidence.”

Donovan stared at the dead man. “I don’t think it matters anymore.”

“But it does, my sweet; for where is the weapon that once sat in this wonderful box?”

Donovan had not been paying attention to the kill space, but the Sleuth and others had been.

He was sitting in the chair when he picked it up, said the Sleuth. It fired upon his mishandling, and he jerked back, then slid forward, feetfirst. The weapon would have dropped to the floor and perhaps rolled a bit. There is not much room here for it to roll very far; yet there is no sign of it. Conclusion: the weapon is self-mobile. Based on the dunnage in which it nestled, it would be the size of a ruggerball—the ellipsoidal kind used on Hawthorne Rose.

Olafsdottr meanwhile had rolled the body aside, perhaps thinking the weapon underneath. What she found was a gaping wound in the back of the skull, as if that iron fist had punched its way out of the brain. “A bore hole through his head!” she said, bending over and looking through it. “Entry through the soft palate, up through the midbrain and the parietal lobe, and smashing out between the occipital and the parietal bones. What was this weapon that so badly backfired on him?”

“It was called the ‘Frog Prince’ on the shipping manifest.”

Olafsdottr grinned. “Busy buoy! And what be the nature of this ‘Frog Prince’?”

“We’re not sure. But there are Terran legends,” he said. “It was to be a trap for the Molnar.” He looked again at the smuggler’s body and the piercing wound through his head. “If I were you, and I saw it hopping about, I wouldn’t try to kiss it.”

Rigardo-ji was stupid, he decided. Like many petty scramblers, he could think from point A to point B, but not beyond it to point C. He had read between the lines and believed Foreganger’s present to the Molnar was a vengeance for the massacre of the Merry v Starinu, but it had never occurred to the treacherous little beast that the weapon had been meant to kill its user.

“So,” said Olafsdottr. “’Tis loose.” She looked about the room and went to the door to listen. Save for the normal susurrus and hum of the engines, the ship was quiet. The pork vat, out of sight of the doorway, hissed and a valve turned with a heavy clunk. The Confederal, already straining to hear sounds, jerked a little, though only a little, and her teaser moved fractionally. “But so long as we do not kiss this … Frog Prince … we need not fear it?”

Donovan shook his head. “I would not hope so easily. It was designed to trick the Molnar into kissing it, but that trick would not have worked more than the once. It must have been designed, after the initial kiss, to seek out targets of opportunity in his stronghold—which to the People of Foreganger would mean anything on Cynthia that lived, man, woman, or child. It is the sort of boundless vengeance the People are famous for. Abyalon is more gently bred, and if word of this ever comes out, more than one national government there will fall. Meanwhile, we are in a pocket. We best back out and seal off the entry into the main part of the ship.”

In the silence that followed, they heard the distant clang of a leaping object.

“It must listen for sounds of life,” the Sleuth whispered through the scarred man’s lips, “and then home in on them. Quick,” added the Brute. “And quiet.”

It was a measure of the Confederal’s concern that she turned her back on Donovan to leave the hidden room, and he with his knuckles white around a wrench. It was a measure of his concern that he took no advantage. One swipe, he thought, and I will see my daughter, after all. And Bridget ban.

You might see them, said the young man in the chlamys, but could you look them in their eyes?

He slipped out of the room close behind the Confederal, and they moved cautiously from behind the fish vat, pausing to listen at each step. They heard another spring, closer this time.

It must leap like a frog, the Sleuth deduced, maintaining the metaphor. A certain artist pride informed the death-techs of Foreganger.

“If we can close the door on it, we may breathe easier,” whispered Olafsdottr. “His Highness may bounce around the hidden passageways to his mechanical heart’s delight; but so long as he is confined there, we need not fear him.”

“At least until he finds his way accidentally into the open part of the ship.”

She turned to look at Donovan. “You are the cheerful one. How?”

“He may not know from doors, but he might strike a jamb-plate by dumb luck. Unless you can deactivate … No? Ah, well, it’s a small ship, but there are too many conduits, chambers, channels, cable runs, hollow spaces; too many spaces, openings, gaps, apertures. Eventually, Froggie will find his way through.”

A relief valve hissed and Donovan jerked, striking a standpipe with his wrench. The clang reverberated though the piping and, on its diminution, they heard the bounding sounds of the Frog Prince stop, then increase in frequency. It was no longer hunting a direction; it had found one. “Quick,” he said, and pushed Olafsdottr on the rear.

They scrambled now, not bothering with silence. Donovan wondered if the Frog Prince would deduce from the sounds the direction they were headed and cut them off.

Olafsdottr reached the door and pulled herself through. The gravity grids on the other side were set to normal, so she stumbled, and momentarily blocked the exit. For an instant, Donovan wondered if she would slam the door in his face to ensure her own safety.

But it had never been her intent to destroy Donovan. And that explained his own earlier hesitations. Had she planned to kill him, he would have had no qualms about striking first. But her goal had been to deliver Donovan hale to Henrietta. That he was disinclined to go there and that whatever befell afterward was bound to be hazardous were not grounds enough to justify a cold-blooded killing.

Yer just outta practice, the Brute suggested.

“Hurry, sweet!” said Olafsdottr.

And to the left Inner Child saw his majesty, the Frog Prince.

A squat and ugly thing, like a toad, but gleaming of chrome, with great blue piston legs and adhesive grippers, large black-lens eyes, its deep-blue, black-spotted façade gore-spattered with Rigardo-ji’s brains. It leapt atop a conduit three arm’s lengths off facing the scarred man. Its mouth opened wide, and made a long, deep rippling sound.

The Silky Voice, from her seat in the hypothalamus flooded the scarred man with adrenaline. Time itself seemed to slow.

Donovan knew that if he turned his back to run through the door, he would be a dead man. His only chance was to face it down. With a wrench. It won’t fire a projectile, said the Sleuth. Trust me. And even the Sleuth’s voice seemed sluggish and drawn out. It will need to leap closer.

As if on command, the Frog Prince leapt again, and landed on a primary lock valve. Its face bore the fatuous, evil smile of a frog. Once more, its lips opened wide, and inside its jaws, a coil of memory metal unwound and shot forth like a lance of steel. Yes, he heard the Sleuth say, I thought as much. The metaphor is complete.

Even under normal circumstances, the Brute had been trained to lightning-fast reflexes. With the boost the Silky Voice was providing, he could move faster still. He swung the wrench—as it seemed, through gelatin. The long, sharp tongue arced toward him.

The wrench connected, and knocked the reddened steel ribbon aside so that it penetrated like a nail into the side of the poultry vat. That’s how it killed the smuggler. There had probably been an instruction: “Kiss to activate.” Rigardo-ji had never had a chance. The steel ribbon would have uncoiled into his mouth and out the back of his head. Likely, he died without ever knowing he was dead.

The memory metal remembered and recoiled to its rest state. The Frog Prince leapt, pulled along by its own tongue. When it landed, it would tug itself loose and take another lick.

Donovan turned to the door.

And Olafsdottr was crowding in, blocking his escape.

His cry emerged as high-pitched as a bat’s, so far into overdrive was he. Olafsdottr brushed him aside with her right arm. The Frog’s tongue lanced again. She seized the ribbon with her left hand pushing it aside, as she had seized the flying shim during their workout, even as she fired the teaser with her right. She screamed.

“Serrated!” She released the tongue of steel, which with a lick swiped her across the side as it rewound.

But a teaser fires a coherent electromagnetic pulse. At certain settings and focuses, it can play havoc with a man’s nervous system. Other settings can fry electronic devices. The Frog Prince flashed and sparked as the induced currents ran along its body and internal circuitry. Its head turned toward Donovan. The mouth opened …

… and smoke came out.

The Brute threw the wrench and it spun into the Frog’s visual sensors, shattering them. But by then the bright blue of the Frog’s body was fading with its power source. Donovan found the wrench and used it to beat the machine into scrap.

When Olafsdottr awoke, she was lying on a pallet in the infirmary. Both hands were encased in restoration gloves while regressed cells rebuilt the torn flesh and snapped bones. Her side, where the tongue had swiped it, was likewise bandaged. To inhale sent a stabbing pain through her.

Donovan sat by the pallet reading a book screen. He looked up when she moved.

“Rib?” she said.

He nodded. “Two. And a deep laceration. What possessed you to grab the tongue like that?”

“I thought only to knock it aside. I did not expect a saw blade.” She raised the two gloves. “My hands?”

“The left one was badly sliced up. You must have grabbed at it with your right after you dropped the teaser.”

“I promised Gidula I would deliver you in one piece to Henrietta. Could not let Froggie punch holes through you.” She took another experimental breath. “I must praise your medical skills, sweet.”

“The meshinospidal did all the work. I just zipped you in the basket and followed the instructions. The automatics took cell samples, regressed them, and applied them in the proper course.”

“Ooh, but you had noo oobligation to deliver me whole. Or to deliver me at all. Foortunate, then…”

Donovan shrugged. “Look,” he said, “can we drop the Alabaster accent? We’re past that, I think.”

“Fortunate, then,” she said more quietly, “you spy Frog Prince in time; or both dead.”

“Inner Child is paranoid. Makes a good sentry.”

Olafsdottr sighed. “Must be very wonderful divide attentions so. I was told it had incapacitated you.”

“It does have its drawbacks sometimes.”

“How do you plan to explain the corpse to the Megranomese authorities?” she asked. “Or how you came by this ship?”

“It was his ship. He was giving us a ride. This thing broke out of its box. Missy, if between the two of us we can’t concoct a story to fool a Megranomic copper we should both of us quit the Long Game.”

Olafsdottr cocked her head sideways. “I thought you had quit.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Almost, you tempt me, sweet. But I am unaccustomed to asking for help.”

Donovan grinned. “I’ll teach you.”

The answering smile was almost sad. “Sweet, between the two of us, we defeated a Foreganger killing machine. Tell me you are not the man we need for the struggle.”

Donovan sat back so that his head rested upon the wall of the little infirmary. He closed his eyes and his breath slowly gusted from him. “I’m not the man you need.”

“Ah, well, it would have been entertaining to watch developments. How long before we reach the Megranome way station?”

The scarred man shrugged. “The ’ospidal had you in suspension for five days. We’re out of Megranome space.”

“Ah. You take me direct to Dangchao, then. Perhaps Bridget ban keep me in clean cage.”

Donovan rose, wiped his palms on his trousers. “You sleep now, ‘sweet.’ Your hands are too badly cut up to pilot the ship. I don’t have a certificate myself, except as a chartsman; but every chartsman is a pilot in training, and certificates are only for officials. We’ll be on the Tightrope in another two days.”

Olafsdottr struggled to sit up, winced at the pain, and slid back prone. “On the Tightrope?”

The scarred man, at the infirmary door, shrugged. “And don’t ask us why, because there’s not a single one of us knows the answer.”