Miles Errant - Lois McMaster Bujold [347]
The flyer rose into the swirling snow and rocked uncertainly in the gusts. The city sprawling below them disappeared quickly into the murk as Rowan powered them up. She glanced aside at his agitated profile. "Lilly will do something," she reassured him. "She wants Naismith too."
"It's wrong," he muttered. "It's all wrong." He huddled in the jacket Rowan had wrapped around him. She turned up the heat.
I'm the wrong one. It seemed he had no intrinsic value but his mysterious hold on Admiral Naismith. And if Admiral Naismith was removed from the Deal, the only person still interested in him would be Vasa Luigi, wanting vengeance upon him for crimes he couldn't even remember committing. Worthless, unwanted, lonely and scared . . . His stomach churned in pain, and his head throbbed. His muscles ached, tense as wire.
All he had was Rowan. And, apparently, the Admiral, who had come searching for him. Who had very possibly risked his life to recover him. Why? I have to do . . . something.
"The Dendarii Mercenaries. Are they all here? Does the Admiral have ships in orbit, or what? How much back-up does he have? He said it would take time for him to contact his back-up. How much time? Where did the Dendarii come in from, a commercial shuttleport? Can they call down air support? How many—how much—where—" His brain tried madly to assemble data that wasn't there into patterns for attack.
"Relax!" Rowan begged. "There's nothing we can do. We're only little people. And you're in no condition. You'll drive yourself into another convulsion if you keep on like this."
"Screw my condition! I have to—I have to—"
Rowan raised wry eyebrows. He lay back in his seat with a sick sigh, drained. I should have been able to do this . . . to do something. . . . He listened to nothing, half-hypnotized by the sound of his own shallow breathing. Defeated. Again. He didn't like the taste. He brooded at his pale and distorted reflection on the inside of the canopy. Time seemed to have become viscous.
The lights on the control panel died. They were suddenly weightless. His seat straps bit him. Fog began to stream up around them, faster and faster.
Rowan screamed, fought and banged the control panel. It flickered; momentarily, they had thrust again. Then lost it again. They descended in stutters. "What's wrong with it, damn it!" Rowan cried.
He looked upward. Nothing but icy fog—they dropped below cloud level. Then above them, a dark shape loomed. Big lift van, heavy. . . .
"It's not a systems failure. We're being intermittently field-drained," he said dreamily. "We're being forced down."
Rowan gulped, concentrated, trying to keep the flyer level in the brief bursts of control. "My God, is it them again?"
"No. I don't know . . . maybe they had some back-up." With adrenaline and determination, he forced his wits to function through the sedative-haze. "Make a noise!" he said. "Make a splash!"
"What?"
She didn't understand. She didn't catch it. She should have—somebody should have—"Crash this sucker!" She didn't obey.
"Are you crazy?" They lurched to ground right-side-up and intact in a barren valley, all snow and crackling scrub.
"Somebody wants to make a snatch. We've got to leave a mark, or we'll just disappear off the map without a trace. No comm link," he nodded toward the dead panel. "We have to make footprints, set fire to something, something!" He fought his seat straps for escape.
Too late. Four or five big men surrounded them in the gloom, stunners at ready. One reached up and unlatched his door, and dragged him out. "Be careful, don't hurt him!" Rowan cried fearfully, and scrambled after. "He's my patient!"
"We won't, ma'am," one of the big parka-clad men nodded politely, "but you mustn't struggle." Rowan stood still.
He stared around wildly. If he made a sprint for their van, could he—? His few steps forward were interrupted when one of the goons grabbed him by his shirt and hoisted him into