Serpent's Reach

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Outsider-human,” Warrior murmured in mingled tones.

  The Outsider began to weep, tears running down his face; and would have sat down where he was, but that Jim and Merry took him in hand and led him up to the porch, to the door.

  iv

  There was at least for the time, quiet in the house—stirrings in the back, noises in the basement, but nothing visible in the main room.

  And the azi who had been Tom Mundy sat on the couch clutching a drink in his hands and staring at the floor.

  “I would like,” Raen said softly, “one simple question answered, if you would.” Jim was by her, and she indicated a place by her; Jim sat down, settled back with a disapproving look.

  Mundy slowly lifted his head, apprehension on his face.

  “How,” Raen asked, “did you find yourself in such circumstances? Did you come to spy on me? Or did someone put you there?”

  He said nothing.

  “All right,” she said. “I won’t insist. But I’m guessing it looked like a means for information. And you made a mistake. A real azi number, real papers, guard-status: a spy could pick up a great deal of information that way, and no one would shut an azi away from communications equipment. I’d guess you make regular reports to Tallen, because no one would suspect you’d do such a thing. But it went wrong, I’m guessing.”

  He swallowed heavily. “You said that I could go.”

  “The car’s being brought. Max and one of the others will deliver you to Tallen’s doorstep—a surprise to him, perhaps. How long were you in those pits?”

  “I don’t know,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t plan coming here, then.” She read the man’s apprehensions and leaned back, shrugged off the question. “You’ll get to Tallen alive, don’t fear that. You’ll come to no harm. How long have you been working on this world?”

  Again an avoidance of her eyes.

  “There are more of you,” she said. “Aren’t there?”

  She obtained a distraught stare.

  “Probably,” she said, “I’ve bought more than one of you and haven’t detected it. I own every guard-azi contract available on this continent. I’d sort you out if I could. You’ve been standing guard in ITAK establishments, gathering information, passing it along to Tallen. Of no possible concern to me. Actually I favor the enterprise. That’s why I’m making a present of you to him. I’d advise you, though, if you know of others in that group, you tell me. There are others, aren’t there?”

  He took a drink, said nothing.

  “Did you know what you were getting into?”

  He wiped at his face and leaned his head on his hand, answer enough.

  “Tell Tallen,” she said, “I’ll pull his men out if he’ll give me the necessary numbers. I doubt you know them.”

  “I don’t,” he said.

  “How did you end up in the Registry?”

  “Took—took the place of an azi the majat killed. Tattoo…papers…a transport guard. Then the depots shut down. Company stopped operating. Been there—been there—”

  “A long time.”

  He nodded.

  A born-man, subjected to tapes and isolation. She regarded him pityingly. “And of course Tallen couldn’t buy you out. An Outsider couldn’t. Even knowing the numbers, he couldn’t retrieve you. Did anyone think of that, before you let that number be tattooed on?”

  “It was thought of.”

  “Do you fear us that much?” she asked softly. He avoided her eyes. “You do well to,” she said, answering her own question. “And you know us. You’ve seen. You’ve been there. Bear your report, Tom Mundy. You’ll do well never to appear again in the Reach. If not for the strict quotas of export, you might have been—”

  Her heart skipped a beat. She laughed aloud, and Tom Mundy looked at her in terror.

  “Azi,” she laughed. “Istra’s primary export. Shipped everywhere.” And then with apprehension, she looked on Jim.

  “I am azi,” Jim said, his own calm slightly ruffled. “Sera, I am azi.”

  She laid a hand on his arm. “There’s no doubt. There’s no doubt, Jim.” There was the sound of a motor at the door. “That will be the car. Come along, ser Mundy.”

  Tom Mundy put the drink aside, preceded her to the door in evident anxiety. She followed out under the portico, where Max had the car waiting, Max standing by it.

  “Max, seize him,” Raen said.

  Mundy sprang to escape; Max was as quick as the order, and fetched him up against the car, rolled with him to the pavement. Majat were at hand, Warriors. Jim himself made to interfere, but Raen put out a hand, restraining him.

  Mundy struggled and cursed. Max shouted for human help, and several more azi arrived on the run.

  It needed a struggle. “Don’t harm him,” Raen called out, when it began to look as if that would be the case; Mundy fought like a man demented, and it took a number of azi to put him down. Cords were searched up, all with a great deal of confusion. A shooting, Raen decided, watching the process, would have been far simpler; as it was the police at the gate wanted to intrude: she saw their lights down the drive, but the gate would keep them out, and she reckoned they would fret, but they would not dare climb a wall to investigate.

  Mundy was held, finally, hands bound. He cursed and screamed until he was breathless, and lay heaving on the pavement. Max and another gathered him to his feet, and Raen stepped back as he spat at her.

  “I’ll keep my word,” she said, “eventually. Don’t try me, Tom Mundy. The worst thing I could do is send you back. Isn’t it?”

  He stopped fighting then.

  “How long have you been infiltrating?” she asked. “How many years?”

  “I don’t know. Would it make sense I’d know? I don’t.”

  “Keep him under guard, Max. Don’t take your eyes off him. one of the basement storerooms ought to be adequate. He won’t want loose down there. Constant watch. See to it.”

  They drew him into the house, and through it. Raen lingered, looked at the disturbed Warriors, whose mandibles clicked with nervousness. “Wrong-hive,” she explained in terms they would understand. “Not enemy, not friend, wrong hive. We will isolate that unit. Pass this information. Warrior must guard that-unit.”

  They spent a moment analysing those concepts, which were alien to the hive. A stranger should be ejected, not detained.

  “That-unit will report if it escapes. We will let it go when it’s good that it report.”

  “Yesss,” they said together, comprehending, and themselves filed into the house, nightmare shapes in the Eln-Kests’ hallway.

  She started to go in, realised Jim was not with her, and turned back, saw him standing by the car, saw the blank horror on his face. She came back, took his hand. From inside the house came a scream of hysteria. She slipped her hand up to Jim’s elbow; decided to walk round the long way, beneath the portico, past the corner, within the walkway to the back, where there was quiet.

  “I am azi,” Jim said.

  She pressed his arm the more tightly. “I know so. I know so, Jim. Don’t distress yourself. It’s been a long, hard day.”

  She felt the tremor, wordless upset.

  “The fall of the dice,” she said, “was a fortunate thing for me. But what a place you’ve come to.”

  “I am azi.”

  “You do very well at it.”

  She walked with him out the arch into the back garden, into chaos, where guard-azi tried to set their supplies in order, where nervous Warriors stalked among humans and touched one and the other. It was pitiful that the azi did not object, that they simply stopped and endured, as no betas would have done, although they were surely afraid. Raen moved among them, sorted Warriors away from humans, nodded to Merry, who began hastily to motion his men into the shelter of the azi quarters. There was no hesitation among them.

  The doors closed. Thereafter majat ruled in the garden, and majat azi scampered out the back door, naked, h
aving shed their sun-protections, with their mad eyes and their cheerful grins, their ready acceptance of the touches of Workers and Warriors. They had come to help, and plunged quite happily into the excavations underway in the garden.

  “They’ll want feeding,” Raen said. “They’re our responsibility. Jim, go locate the domestics. Have them cook up enough for the whole lot. The majat azi will prefer boiled grain. There look to be about fifty of them.”

  Jim murmured agreement, and went, tired and shaken as he was. She watched him at the azi quarters gather up the six in question, watched him shepherd them across to the house, fending away the persistent majat azi. He managed. He managed well. She was able, for a moment, to relax…lingered, gazing on the shadow-forms of majat, the blue lights of the azi winking eerily in the shadowed places of the garden, where the tunnel was deepening.

  “Worker,” she said when one passed near her, “how far will the tunnel go?”

  “Blue-hive,” it said, which was answer, not inanity. A chill went over her skin. She surmised suddenly that there were tunnels begun elsewhere, an arm of the hive reached out into the city.

  Mother accepted; Mother had ordered. The hive reached out to embrace them and protect. She wrapped her arms about her, found the lights shimmering in her vision.

  There was a freshness in the air, of moisture and evening. A little drop fell on her arm and she looked up, at a sky mostly clouded. There was another rain coming. It would hardly trouble the majat, or their azi.

  She wandered inside finally, as domestic azi came out, bearing foodstuffs, hastening for fear of the majat, to the kitchens in the azi quarters.

  One remained in the house kitchen, under Jim’s direction, preparing a different meal. “Thank you,” Raen said to them both; she could have eaten azi porridge without compunction, so tired she was; but she was glad when a good dinner was set before her and Jim took his place at the end of the table.

  The hive was about her. The song began. She could hear it in the house, illusory and soft as the rainfall, as old dreams.

  Then she thought of the basement, and the cup hesitated at her lips; she drank, and began reckoning of other things.

  Of Itavvy, and promises; of Pol Hald; of Tallen.

  Of the Family.

  There were messages upon messages. Comp spat them out in inane profusion; and she sat and searched them, the while thunder rumbled overhead.

  One was ser Dain. MY HUMBLEST APOLOGIES. THE ARTIST IS SER TOL ERRIN, 1028D UPCOAST. There was more, mostly babble. She rubbed her eyes, took a sip of coffee, and entered worldcomp to pull a citizen number, to link it with another program.

  One was Pol Hald. NEWPORT IS DISMAL. MY SUFFERING IS EXTREME. REJOICE.

  She drank more coffee, sinking into the rhythms of the majat song which ran through the house, nerved herself for intercomp. The dataflow never stopped, world to station, station to station, station to world, jumping information like ships from point to point. Data launched could not be recalled.

  She called up the prepared program regarding contracts, and export quotas, the oft-denied permits.

  GRANTED, she entered, to all of them.

  In an hour the board would be jammed with queries, chaos, the deadlock broken. Cerdin would not know it for eight days.

  She called up the city guest house, and drew a sleepy outsider out of bed. “Call Tallen,” she said, using her own image and direct voice, which she had not used on Istra.

  Tallen appeared quickly, his person disordered, his face flushed. “Kont’ Raen,” he said.

  “I’ve an azi,” she said, “who knows you. His name is Tom Mundy.”

  Tallen started to speak, changed his mind. Whatever of sleep there was about him vanished.

  “He’s not harmed,” she said. “Won’t be. But I want to know how long this has been going on, ser Tallen. I want an answer. How much and how many and how far?”

  “I’ll meet with you.”

  She shook her head. “Just a plain answer, ser. Monitored or not. How far has the net spread itself?”

  “I have no desire to discuss this long-distance.”

  “Shall I ask Mundy?”

  Tallen’s face went stark. “You’ll do as you please, I imagine. The trade mission—”

  “Is under Reach law, Kontrin law. I do as I please, yes. He’s safe for the moment. I’ll give him back to you, so you needn’t do anything rash. I merely advise you that you’ve done a very unwise thing, ser. Give me those numbers and I’ll do what I can to sort things out for you; you understand me. I can act where you can’t. I’m willing to do so…a matter of humanity. Give me the numbers”

  Tallen broke contact.

  She had feared so. She shook her head, swallowed down a stricture in her throat with a mouthful of cooling coffee, finally turned housecomp over to automatic.

  She drank the rest of the coffee, grimacing at the taste, followed it with half a measure of liquor, and sat listening to the thunder.

  “Sera,” Jim said, startling her. She glanced at the doorway.

  “Go to bed,” she told him. “What about the azi downstairs? Settled?”

  He nodded.

  “Go on,” she said. “Go rest. You’ve done what you can.”

  He was not willing to leave; he did so, and she listened as his footsteps went upstairs. She sat still a moment, listening to the hive-song, then rose and went downstairs, into the dark territory of the basement.

  Majat-azi gathered about her. She bade them away, suffered with more patience the touch of Workers and Warriors. There was a door guarded by Warriors. She. opened it, and two guard-azi rose to their feet, from the chairs inside. The third huddled in the corner, on a mat of blankets.

  “I’ve spoken with Tallen,” she said. “He’s very upset. Is there anything I can get for your comfort?”

  A jerk of the head, refusal. He would not look at her face. They had taken the cords off him. There was the double guard to restrain him.

  “You were a transport guard. Were you sensible enough to understand that what you’re seeing on this world is not the usual, that things have gone vastly amiss?”

  Still he would say nothing, which in his place, was the wiser course.

  She sank down, rested her arms across her knees, stared at him. “I’ll hazard a guess, ser 113-489-6798, that all you’ve done has been a failure: that Tallen would have known me had it succeeded. You’ve scattered azi off this world, if at all, only to have the embargo stall them, if not here, on Pedra, on Jin. And do you know where they’ll be? In cases similar to your own. You entered that faculty when the depots were closed…about half a year ago. What do you think will become of those stalled there for years, as some are—two years already, for some? What do you think will come out of that? You think they’ll be sane? I doubt it. And how many azi have a to transmission of messages via intercomp? None, ser. You’ve thrown men away. Like yourself.”

  Eyes fixed on hers, hollow, in a shaven skull. Thin hands clasped knees against his chest. Ire would never, she thought, be the man he would have been. Youth, cast away in such a venture. More than one of them. He might break. Most would, if majat asked the questions. But she much doubted that he knew anything beyond himself.

  “Majat,” she said, “killed the azi you replaced. Was that a hazard, running the depots?”

  “They’re all over,” he said hoarsely. “Farms—armed camps for fear of them.”

  Cold settled on her at that. She nodded. “Ever see them in the open?”

  “Once. Far across the fields. We drove out of it, fast as we could.”

  “What do you suppose they would do?”

  “There’d been trucks lost. They’d find the trucks. Nothing else.”

  She nodded slowly. “It fits, ser Mundy. It does fit. Thank You. Rest now. Get some sleep. You’ll not be bothered. And I’ll get you back to Tallen in one piece if you’ll stay in this room. Please don’t try my guards. A scratch from a majat is deadly as a bite. But they won’t come into this
room.”

  She rose, left, walked out among the Warriors. The door closed behind her. She singled out one of the larger ones, touched it, soothed it. “Warrior, many azi, many, in blue. hive? Weapons?”

  “Yes.”

  “The hives have taken azi, taken food?”

  There was a working of mandibles, a little disturbance at this question. “Take, yesss. Red-hive takes, goldss take, greens take, blue-hive, yessss. Store much, much. Mother says take, keep, prevent other-hives.”

  “Warrior, has blue-hive killed humans?”

  “No. Take azi. Keep.”

  “Many azi.”

  “Many,” Warrior agreed.

  v

  Jim sat on the bed, massaged his temples, tried to still the pounding in his skull. Never panic; never panic. Stop. Think. Thinking Is good service. It is good to serve well.

  He seldom recalled the tapes verbatim. The thoughts were simply there, inwoven. This night he remembered, and struggled to remember. He was unbearably tired. Strange sights, everything strange—he trembled with the burden of it.

  The other Kontrin had gone, that at least, away around the world; but the majat would not go, nor this flood of azi. He remained unique: he sensed this, clung to it.

  He had here, and the others did not. He had this room, this place he shared with her, and the others did not.

  He rose finally, and went through all the appropriate actions, born-man motions, for although the Jewel had rigid rules about cleanliness, there had been no facilities such as these, even in upper decks. He showered, coated himself liberally with soap, once, twice, three times…in sheer enjoyment of the fragrance, so unlike the bitter detergent that had come automatically through the azi-deck system, stinging eyes and noses. He worked very hard at his personal appearance: he understood it for duty to her, to match all these fine things she had, the use of which she gave him; and she was the measure of all the wide world through which she drew him. He had seen rich men, powerful men, in absolute terror of her; and majat who feared her and majat who obeyed her; and another Kontrin who treated her carefully; and he himself was closest to her, an importance as heady as wine. On the ship he had been terrified by the reaction of others to her; he had not known how it would be to live on the other side of it, shielded within it.