THE ROAD UNREELS

1544 4D

“No,” Andrew said, trying to read the expression Mentrius wore.

“Come with me. It’s better over here.” Mentrius beckoned; the flat area led to the left, where it narrowed and disappeared around a bend in the Fall. Andrew followed him, then slowed, remembering Alliji‘s warning.

Mentrius waited, then said, “Come on. You’ll feel better further back; I’ve got the same problem you do.”

Andrew said, “I’m not afraid of heights. It’s just…"

“You’ve never seen anything like this before,” Mentrius said. “It’ll take some time to get used to it. I’ve been here once.” His lean face looked drawn and tense.

They walked along the narrow slot between the Fall and the upthrust of stone that hid them from the open air, until they were out of sight of the others. Mentrius turned and said, “Luce, I’ve got a problem.”

“I know. I’m your problem.” Andrew stiffened.

Mentrius ignored him. “Here’s the problem. I’ve got a soldier in my squad who’s breached militia security and violated basic intelligence rules. What should I do about it?”

Andrew‘s mind raced. Here it was. He braced himself to hear Mentrius‘s next words, and shook his head. “Report him,” he said. “What did he do?”

“I didn’t say it was a man,” Mentrius said smoothly. “Do you know something about it?”

“No.”

“Be careful how you answer me, because anyone who conceals such activity becomes legally a part of it. Do you know anything about it?”

“No, I don’t.”

Mentrius reached in his thighpack and pulled out a battered datasheet. “Do you know whose this is?”

Andrew stared at it, and shook his head, even as the truth came to him.

“We got this in a body search of one of those Novander Wye militia types, back near their plains station. The guy we took it from wasn’t very happy to see it go.”

Andrew nodded slowly, not moving. Linderus would have died to keep that datasheet, unless he had copied it off. But then he would have erased it, unless he’d wanted to keep it too as a material souvenir. If only he’d erased the military part.

“You agree. Good. We opened it up, and checked it out, and my word, it belonged to that woman you searched. How did it get from there to where we found it?” Mentrius was enjoying this.

Andrew shrugged, waited, his mind racing through the possibilities of what Mentrius might do.

“So you’ve told me you know nothing, yet you were the one who took this off the body. And it ended up in the hands of the Novander coll. It’s military data, supposed to go to command for analysis. Giving away military data is a serious crime. That’s what the mines at Transellas are for.”

Andrew‘s apprehension and anger rose. “If you think I did all this, file your accusation and let’s be done with it. I’m not going to give you anything to play with.”

“You’ve given me plenty, Luce. Enough to get my cousin away from you and that ragass family of yours, and those tattershit friends of yours, and most of all, you.” Now Mentrius‘s eyes were bright with anger. He stuffed the datasheet back in his thighpack. “And now I heard Leil‘s got your kid.”

The forbidden thought burst from deep inside Andrew. “You wanted her yourself, didn’t you?”

Mentrius froze. His look of malicious enjoyment vanished, and his mouth worked, unable at first to form words. He erupted at Andrew, a long saw-edged knife suddenly in his hand. “You scum! I’ll kill you for that!”

Andrew whirled aside, kicking the blade away with the grabtrac on his left boot, and in that instant he knew his words were the truth.

Mentrius blocked the way back to the others; he came at Andrew a second time, and Andrew retreated, feeling his way backward along the narrow track, his eyes fixed on the bright jagged blade in Mentrius‘s hand. A third thrust, and Andrew found himself backing with his right hand against the great wall of the Fall, and his left hand grasping in empty turbulent air.

They were now out on a bare ledge, with nothing between them and a near-three-thousand-meter drop. The ledge lay across a vertical concavity in the Fall, so that from the point where the two men had come, several soldiers could see them clearly. A shout crossed the gap, but the wind’s roar made it indistinct.

Andrew tried not to let his gaze wander. “Look,” he called to Mentrius, “Let it go. If you want to turn me in, go ahead.” He wanted to look to his left, into the void, but he forced his eyes to stay on Mentrius‘s knife.

“I’ll kill you,” Mentrius spat. “You bugsucking stream of piss.” He lunged again. “This is for Lusin, and all the others.” Another voice, a woman’s, cried out.

The ledge behind Andrew ended. He had no place left to go. The wall above him slanted away slightly, enough to let him arch his body to avoid the thrust. Mentrius‘s foot slipped from the ledge. He scrabbled backward and recovered his balance, his eyes wide, his rage still driving him to lunge again.

Andrew finally got his own knife out of its sheath, parrying desperately; Mentrius‘s thrust cut him in the flesh of his left side, and he cried out.

Now he had to fight. He glanced to his left just long enough to see clouds sinking, evaporating; the wind howled and ripped at him. He clenched his left arm over the wound; his blood, warm and wet, soaked through his torn uniform onto his left sleeve. He got his own knife into his right hand.

“You pig!” Mentrius, grimacing with rage and hate, drove at Andrew again, his knife coming around and down in a wide stabbing arc toward Andrew‘s heart.

No time to think; Andrew flung up his left and forced Mentrius‘s knife arm outside of his own, away from the wall, and stepped in close to wedge his taller assailant out and off balance. Blood, no longer stoppered by his arm, gushed from him.

Mentrius reacted to the loss of position. Knife still in hand, he seized Andrew‘s collar as his right foot slipped from the ledge. His left hand restrained Andrew‘s knife, but now his own blade lay near the side of Andrew‘s neck; Andrew squatted, his back to the wall, and drove his helmet into Mentrius‘s gut as the man’s blade scraped up past his ear.

It was enough. Mentrius tried to get back onto the ledge by whipping Andrew past him, to trade places, but Andrew was too well braced for that. Mentrius could only regain partial balance, backing away into a wider area still open to the void, but a gust of air sucked at him, and he started to go over.

In a clear instant, Andrew saw the road ahead of him unreel and divide. If Mentrius died, his family would find out, and the blood feud would worsen. But if Mentrius lived, he would come after Andrew again. Either way was bad.

Andrew dived forward, snatched Mentrius‘s leg, and sprawled flat, both hands firmly gripping the ankle, until Mentrius‘s fall stopped with a jerk that threatened to haul Andrew off the ledge too. The pain tearing at Andrew‘s side made him cry out.

“Don’t drop me!” Mentrius‘s voice was panicked, a near-scream. He hung upside down, face outward.

“I won’t!” Andrew shouted back. “Let me get a better grip.” His belly seemed to be ripping apart. He pulled upward, reversed his grip one hand at a time, and bent both arms, straining his burden upward in a biceps curl, until most of Mentrius‘s calf was above the ledge. “Bend your knee backward,” he gasped as loudly as he could with his jaw clenched. “That’s it.” They levered until Mentrius‘s weight hung from his knee; Andrew applied weight to the man’s ankle. “Now get the other leg up here.” They worked until both of Mentrius‘s lower legs lay flat on the ledge, Andrew lying across them to prevent them from slipping off.

Andrew fumbled for a short rope, and passed the end down to Mentrius, who fastened himself on. Still lying across Mentrius‘s feet, he fished out an anchor and a hammer, and locked the anchor bolt securely in a narrow crack where the ledge met the wall. He anchored Mentrius‘s rope, and belayed it. Then he stuck his face over the edge.

“We’re going to make a deal,” he called. “Is that clear?”

Mentrius, facing out into emptiness with nearly three kilometers of space below him, said, his voice high and shaking, “Yes. It’s clear.”

“I won’t repeat what I said to you, and you’ll leave me and mine alone from now on,” Andrew said. His side was numbing.

“Yes.”

“You lost Lusin, and I lost Gej. Isn’t that enough?”

A pause. The wind’s buzz and rage ripped through the shouts of the soldiers, led by Woodlinrie, now edging out to try to reach them.

“Did you hear what I said, Mentrius? I had to tell the Tondas. Gej was a Hejji brother to me.” The loss of blood made Andrew feel lighter-headed; the rope started to slip through his fingers, and he clenched it again.

Mentrius must have felt the slippage. “Yes. It’s enough.”

“Return that datasheet to me. You will never again mention it to anyone. Is that… clear.” The thin air and the wound sucked at Andrew‘s consciousness; the sky darkened.

“Here.” Mentrius fished out the datasheet and handed it up to Andrew.

“Let’s keep this between us.”

“Yes. Please. Get me out of here.”

Andrew shoved the datasheet back in his own thighpack, and with one last effort hauled Mentrius to safety. On his knees, he looked up; Marande and Woodlinrie and the others neared them; more blood flowed out between his fingers at his side, whipping off into the howling wind; he fell unconscious on his face.