Cyteen: The Betrayal by C. J. Cherryh

axe-code. I know for a fact there’s not-I know my sets, Justin. Let’s just forget this and go up the hill and we’ll figure out another way. If it gets bad, we always have this for an option.”
    “Shut up and listen to me. Remember how we mapped this out: first lights you see on your right are still Reseune: that’s the number ten precip station, up on the bluffs. The lights on your left two klicks on will be Moreyville. If you run completely dark you can pass there before Ari gets wind of this, and it’s a clear night. Remember, stay to the center of the channel, that’s the only way to miss the bars, and for God’s sake, be careful of snags. Current comes from the left when you get to the Kennicutt. You turn into it, and the first lights you see after that, two, maybe three hours on, that’s Krugers. You tell them who you are and you give them this-” He turned on a dim chart-light and scribbled a number down on the pad clipped to the dash. Under the number he wrote: MERILD. “Tell them call Merild, no matter the hour. You can tell Merild when he gets there-tell him Ari’s blackmailing Jordan through me, dammit, that’s all he has to know. Tell him I can’t come until my father’s free, but I had to get you out of there, you’re one more hostage than Jordan can cope with. Understand?”
    “Yes,” Grant said in a faint voice, azi-like: yes.
    “The Krugers won’t betray you. Tell them I said sink the boat if they have to. It’s Emory’s. Merild will handle everything else.”
    “Ari will call the police.”
    “That’s fine. Let her. Don’t try to go past the Kennicutt. If you have to, the next place on down the Volga is Avery, overnight, maybe more, and she could intercept you. Besides, you’d get caught up in Cyteen-law and police down there, and you know what that could be. Krugers is it. It has to be.” He looked back at Grant’s face in the faint glow of the chart-light, and it struck him suddenly that he might not see him again. “Be careful. For God’s sake, be careful.”
    “Justin.” Grant embraced him hard. “You be careful. Please.”
    “I’ll push you out of here. Go on. Dog the seals down.”
    “The other boat-” Grant said.
    “I’ll take care of it. Go!” Justin turned and ducked out of the door, hopped up on the deck and onto the echoing grating. He cast off the ties then, threw them aboard, shoved the big boat back with his foot and with his hands till it drifted clear, scraping the buffers.
    It swung round sideways, inert and dark, then caught the current off the boathouse and drifted, following the sweep of the main channel, turning again.
    He opened up the second boat and threw up the cover on the engine.
    The starter was electronic. He pulled the solid state board, dropped the cover down, closed the hatch behind him, and dropped the board into the water before he made the jump between the boat and the metal grid of the dock.
    In the same moment he heard the distant, muffled cough of Grant’s engine.
    Solid then, chugging away.
    He cleared the boathouse, latched the door and ran. It was dangerous to be down here on the river-edge, in the dark, dangerous anywhere less patrolled, where something native could have gotten in, weed in the ditch, stuff carried in the air-God knew. He tried not to think about it. He ran, took up on the road again, walking as he caught a stitch in his side.
    He expected commotion. He expected someone on night shift at the airport to have seen the boat, or heard its engine start. But the work at the hangars was noisy. Maybe someone had had a power wrench going. Maybe they thought it was some passing boat from Moreyville or up-Volga, with a balky engine. And they had the bright lights to blind them.
    So far their luck was a hundred percent.
    Till he got to the House and found the kitchen door locked.
    He sat down a while on the steps, teeth chattering, trying to think it through, and gave it a while, time for a boat to get well on its way.