Cyteen: The Betrayal by C. J. Cherryh Page B

of waves as the bow came up. To hell with the wake, then, and with the floating snags that had sunk many a boat in the Novaya Volga.
    If they had sent boats out from Moreyville, or from the other end of Reseune, and if someone on those boats had a gun, shots could go through the cabin, breach the seals fatally even if they missed him, or go through the hull and maybe hit the fuel tanks-but they had rather put a hole in the boat and slow it with waterlogged compartments. They would not, he was sure, want him dead if they had a choice.
    He did not intend to harm Justin, that was his first determination: not to be used against Justin, nor against Jordan. And beyond that, even an azi had a right to be selfish.
    The plane roared directly over him, throwing the decks into bright light, blinding glare through the cabin windows. The beam passed on a moment, leaving him half blind in the sudden dark. He saw it light the trees on the far side of the river, pale gray of native foliage against the night.
    Suddenly the bow fell off to starboard and that floodlit view of the bank turned up off the bow, not the beam. In a moment’s fright he thought the propeller might have fouled, and then he knew it was current he had run into-the Kennicutt’s effluence into the Volga.
    He put the helm over, still blind except for the fleeting glimpse the searchlight had shown him of the wooded ground on the far side. He could run aground. He dared not turn the lights on.
    Then he saw the shadow of the banks, tall trees black against the night sky on either side of an open space of starlit water.
    He drove for it; and the boat shuddered and jolted to impact along the keel, scrape of sand and a shock that threw him violently as the boat slewed out of control.
    He caught himself against the dash then, saw a black wall in front of him and swerved with everything the boat had.
    Something banged against the bow and scraped portside. Snag. Sandbar and snag. He heard it pass aft, saw the clear water ahead of him and hoped to God it was the Kennicutt he was in after that sort-out and not the Volga. He could not tell. It looked the same as the other, just black water, glancing with starlight.
    He risked the chart-light for a second to sneak a look at the compass. Bearing northeast. The Volga could bend that much, but he thought it had to be the Kennicutt. The plane had not come back. It was even possible that the maneuver had confused it, and he was not, God knew, running with the Locator beacon on. Ari’s power was enough to get Cyteen Station in on the hunt, and that plane’s beacon could guide the geosynchronous surveillance satellites to a good fix, but so far as he knew there was no strike capacity on the Locators, and he could still, he hoped, outrun any intercept from Moreyville or further down the Volga.
    First lights after that, Justin had said. Two, maybe three hours further on, up a river that had no further development on its banks. Krugers’ Station was a mining outpost, largely automated, virtually all related to each other: what azi they brought in all got their CIT papers within the year, and a share of Kruger Mines on top of it-a dream of an assignment, the kind of place azi whispered among themselves did exist, if one were very, very good-And if one’s Contract was affordable.
    Nothing like that existed for a seventeen-year-old azi with an X on his number, and all the political sense a boy could gain, living in Reseune and in the House, advised him that Justin had done something for his sake desperate beyond all reason—
    Advised him that the Krugers might well have welcomed a Warrick with an azi he had a valid Contract for, but that there were good reasons they might not welcome that azi by himself.
    God knew.
    He was, the more he had time to think about it, a liability on all accounts, except for what he knew about Reseune, Ari, and
    Warrick business, which people might insist he give up; and he had had no instructions on that. He was