by Jo Clayton
Jingko iKan leaned closer, blew gently at it. As the crystal changed its song to something that was his alone, his dust lids slid over his eyes and his monkey face went momentarily slack. After a moment, though, he leaned back in his chair, sat rubbing the callus patches on his wrists together, using the skrikking sound to counter the spell of the crystal.
“Wrap it again,” he said. “I can do without that enchantment dulling my sense of what thing is worth. How hot is it?”
She refolded the film around the crystal, tucking the ends under without sealing them. “Cold as winter on Wolff. It’s unregistered.”
“You got through Kliu security?”
“Let’s just say I had help. And it’s not something I can repeat. This is part of my share of the deal. I’ve got another stowed away, a bigger weave. I thought one at a time would get a better price.”
He rubbed the calluses together once again, the skrikking this time filled with satisfaction. “That is truth. For sure, for sure. You do bring me such interesting items, Lylunda Elang. Hm. To get the most out of this little item will take some time. Are you pressed for coin?”
“I’m well enough, desp’ Jingko. Take what time you need.” She reached under the smock again, brought out a much smaller packet, unfolded it, and pushed the one-time flake it held across the desk. “The blind drop on Helvetia. Transfer the credit when you get it, less your commission and five perc over for expenses.”
“The expenses might be rather large. Security costs.”
“You and I both know what the total take is likely to be. With five perc of that you could buy your own army.”
“We’ll see. Yes, we will.” He lifted the packet with finicky care, rose from his chair, and moved two steps back. A curtain of darkness cut suddenly across the room, hiding him and the crystal.
Lylunda rubbed at the underside of her breast where the film and the tape had irritated the skin. She hadn’t told Jingko the exact truth. She had two more crystals, not one; they were tucked away in a lock box on Helvetia, the safest place she could think to leave them. It was a problem, when to get rid of them. She didn’t want to overload the market, but there could be a limit to the time in which she could get the best price. Prangarris expected to have his Taalav array established and producing within five years. If he succeeded, the rarity factor would be lost; people would still pay a good price for them, given their beauty and their charm, but not the world’s ransom they paid now.
The black curtain vanished and Jingko iKan settled into his chair again. “One other um… difficulty. I had an intrusion that tells me the Kliu know about this. About you.”
“Ah?”
His antennae twitched through a slow dance as he stared past her at the door. “Yes,” he said finally. “I was approached. Asked if you were one of my clients. Most annoying. They have no tact at all. And no common sense. If you’re worried about me, to turn a client would destroy my reputation and my earnings would stop. No mention was made of your having the Taalav crystals.”
“If 1 were worried, I wouldn’t be here, desp’ Jingko.”
“They will have approached others. I have informed OverSec that attempts on a client of the Market might be made. They also are annoyed, but it would be better not to have to call on them.”
“Hm. I’m going to be at the Marratorium for a few days. Better to find out here what’s coming at me. Easier to watch my back.” She got to her feet. “Take care, desp’.”
2
Hair flying, feet kicking through the intricate patterns of the voor tikeri, Lylunda sucked on the pelar pipe and danced to and away from Qatifa, the Caan she’d run across watching the knife cotillion at the Pertarn Darah arena. She’d shucked the neck-to-ankle cover of her disguise and wore her play clothes, a black-washed-to-gray T-shirt sliced to ragged fringe for the bottom six inches, some ancient cutoffs that she-hadn’t bothered to hem, plus a pair of supple footgloves with roughened soles to give traction for the dancing. The pelar bowl was tucked into the T-shirt’s pocket and bounced with her breasts so she had to keep her teeth clamped on the stem or she’d lose it. Now and then she grinned at Qatifa and blew a cloud of dreamsmoke in her face.
Qatifa’s plush fur was a dark chocolate brown with russet and occasionally gold glimmers when the light hit it in just the right way. It smelled faintly like cinnamon, was impossibly soft, and was matchless as a teaser against bare skin, at least in Lylunda’s view of such things. The Caan’s eyes were narrowed to slits against a puff of smoke, the light catching glimmers of gold in the darkness of her round blunt face.
When the music stopped, they elbowed back to the chip of a table they’d claimed, settled into the instruments of pain the Tangul Cafй had attached to the tables, mislabeling them as chairs. Qatifa rolled her tongue and cut through the noise with a whistle that brought the tiny jaje waiter scrambling over to them.
“Double shot of Nibern for me, mineral water for that dancing fool across from me.” She waved away Lylunda’s motion to pay and dropped a credit chip in the jaje’s palm…
“How you can drink that syrup?” Lylunda shuddered.
“How you can smoke that crap?” Qatifa chuckled, a rumble, deep in her chest. “I like sweets. You should know, gula-mi. One splendid thing about skin people, you can smear them with all sorts of lovely goo and lick it off without getting fur in your teeth.” An ear twitched. “The sale came through just before you called, Luna. I’m out of here before the next pay cycle at the tie-down. Which means a couple hours and see-ya.”
Lylunda grimaced. Before she could respond, the waiter was back with their order. She took the flask of bubbling water and gloomed at it. “It’s been fun,” she said finally. “Maybe we could do it again sometime.”
“That’s what you said the last time. You should work on your valedictions a bit, gula-mi.” Qatifa’s grin faded. She gulped down a mouthful of the Nibern, sat chewing on the fruit. “Luna, my friend, I’ve heard a rumor or two. Why don’t you tandem your ship on-mine and come fool around a while with me on Acaanal?”
Lylunda smiled. However much she liked Qatifa, she’d be jumping out of her skin by her second week of undiluted Caan company. “Thanks, Qat. I’ve got commitments elsewhere, but I appreciate the thought.”
Qatifa looked at the glass, wrinkled her blunt nose. “I’d better go pee ’f I don’t want to disgrace myself next time we hit the floor. Besides, the hornman promised me a slow dance and it’s about time he came through on that.”
Alternating sips of the water with draws on the pipe, Lylunda watched the tall femme undulate through the closely packed tables, using the tips of her claws on hopeful hands trying to cop a feel of Caan fur. For a moment she was tempted to change her mind and go with Qatifa, but common sense returned when the sleekly graceful form vanished behind a bead curtain.
She felt something brush against her neck and turned to see the back of a man moving away from her, a stranger as far as she could tell. When nothing else happened, she forgot about him and let the pelar float her off to a place where she wasn’t worried about anything.
The man calling himself Exi Exinta came out of the drifts of smoke and stood beside her. “Come with me,” he said.
Larr off, Ziz, she thought, then was startled as her body rose and walked after him. What the… Zombi! That snake shot me up with Zombi juice. She drew in a breath to yell, but Exinta heard and turned. “Be quiet,” he said.
Her throat closed and the words died there as she shuffled after him, the pelar countering the Z-juice enough to let her drag her feet. She contrived to bump heavily into tables, to slam into people, to swing her arms so she knocked over drinks, creating a commotion that set Exinta cursing under his breath as he grabbed her arm and tried to hustle her along faster.
Lylunda fixed her eyes on the door, sweat coiling down her face, fear and rage knotting her insides. It drew closer and closer. She tried to pull loose, but the hold of the drug was too strong even with all the pelar in her system. Her t
ongue was locked, she couldn’t even form words, let alone say them.
“Oy! Luna. Where you going? Huh?” Qatifa’s voice, filled with anger and alarm.
Exinta yanked on her arm. They were almost to the door. She managed to turn her head, to open her mouth. She couldn’t speak… not a word… not a word…
Golden eyes widened as Qatifa understood what was happening. “Zombi,” she roared, her voice cutting through the noise of instruments tuning and the undertone of conversation, shocking the place to silence. She came plunging through the tahles, claws out, mouth stretched in a threat snarl, teeth glistening in the light from the pseudo torches.
Exinta ran for his life, diving under the arm of a peacer ’bot that came clanking into the cafй.
Most of the crowd in the Tangul faded as the ’bot hummed over to Lylunda and clamped his cuff claw around her wrist. Qatifa patted her cheek. “Gula-mi, don’t take this wrong, but I can’t afford to get hung up.” Then she faded with the rest.
3
Lylunda Elang sat on a couch in the armored peaceplex, cursing Exinta and trying not to think about the headache that was sitting behind her eyes ready to sink its claws. She rubbed absently at the itchy place on her wrist where they took blood to make sure what she’d been given. Jaink! I’ll be glad when I’m finally flushed clean of that stuff. I want a full spectrum clear, who knows what that ziz blew into me. Not from this lot either, I wouldn’t trust them with a cotton swab. What’s holding things up? I want to get out of here.
The door slid open and a nutrient dish with an immature Blurdslang hummed in. “Des’ Ela’?”
Lylunda got carefully to her feet, trying not to jar the lurking headache awake. “I can go?”
“I’ you ’ollow me?”
She sighed and moved after him.
The elder Blurdslang contemplated her for several moments, then played his fingerlings over the speaker cube. “The Directors are considerably disturbed by the use of a will suppressant; I am sure you can understand the reasoning behind that, smuggler, so I will not elaborate. The user has been located and probed. There was a confederate, a brother, but he left before we could lay hands on him. By the end of the dium, the user will be wiped and sold to a contract labor firm. The Kliu will be informed that they are not welcome here. We have discussed what to do about you, Lylunda Elang. There was a suggestion that since you drew those men here, you should share their fate. The Broker Jingko iKan spoke for you and convinced the majority that you are a valued client and will continue to be one.”
Too angry and alarmed to speak, Lylunda pressed her lips together and tried to ignore the throbbing in her left temple.
“The will suppressant was a bootleg version of c5 Z juice as it is called in the vernacular, overage, with a number of impurities that could cause you some difficulty. The medtechs suggest you prepare yourself for several days bed rest and a bland diet, eschewing all caffeine and other drugs. The Directors suggest you do it on board your ship, bound elsewhere.”
“All right. Can I go now?”
“In a moment. The Directors of Marrat’s Market are not banning you; they simply suggest that you clear up this difficulty before you attempt to return. Have you any questions?”
“No.”
“Your gear has been collected from your room in the ottotel and will be waiting in a transfer pod. A peacer ’bot will escort you to the pod. I am told to inform you this is a courtesy not a constraint.”
4
Migraine auras invading her eyes like flags of crumpled cellophane shivering in a high wind, Lylunda brought her ship to what counted as a stop at the Limit, drifting into a slow orbit about Marrat’s sun while the ottodoc grumbled at her blood and she ran a disinfect over the outer surface of the ship. The crawler dislodged three tags, one obvious and meant to be found, one subtle and one she didn’t understand at all that she found only by chance, a shift in the solar wind that jogged the crawler in just the right way.
By the time the doe’s notifier pinged, she was blind in large areas of her vision field and her head hurt so much that she couldn’t bear to move. She turned and almost drowned in the vomit that caught her by surprise as she groped for the slot; she slid her arm in and waited for the shot she hoped would give her some relief.
She felt the sting against her wrist, a moment later the burn of stomach acid in her throat, a shiver in her knees. She just had time to withdraw her arm before she collapsed in a heap on the floor.
When she woke, she knew there was only once place where she could feel safe for the next year. She had to go home.
3. Worm’s View
“Your jodidda juice din’t work. They got Xman, stinking slinkies. Almost got me, but I slid.”
The ears on the Kliu image curled tight and the eating mouth opened to show the tearing teeth. The speaking mouth rippled as if the old male wanted to chew the words, but when the sounds came through the twit cones, they were mild enough. “The woman remains at the Market?”
“The smuggler? When slinkies let her go, she took off. I got an idea where, but I don’t say no jodidda thing, and I don’t go nowhere till you pry Xman loose.”
“That requires consultation. I will get back to you.”
For several minutes Worm stared at the glassy blankness of the screen, fingers of one hand plucking at the plas cover on the chair ann. He moved his shoulders finally, straightened his back, and reached for the flake case.
“Da, Xman got snicked by the slinkies.”
The old man glared at him from the snakes tangle of wires and tubes of the Sustainer. “How come you clean?”
“Way we planned it, I zombi the femme and get out, he fetches her, I hit for the ship and get ready to go. When that don’t come off, he hits out for me anyway, but he don’t make it. I see peacer ’bots globe him and they got one jodiddan huge shaker with ’em, wouldda dusted me good if I’d tried snatching ’im. I cut out but stay in system, get through to Sniff Herk and he tells me that the slinkies,, they read Xman’s head, blew it clean and laid a contract on him. And they got a pickup for me, so I can’t go back. I get on to the scivs, tell ol’ jodface he gonna buy Xman out or I don’t go nowhere. They don’t come through, you better send Dogboy and Trish to see if they can lever him out.”
“You shoot y’ mouth too fast, boy. You gonna have some backin’ down to do if scivs set their claws and won’t move. They still got Mort, so they got us by the cojos. You gotta get that femme, so we hold value for the trade. When they lookin’ at her meat ’n all, they know they gotta do a deal.”
“Sorry, Da. I was so burned they give Xman junk juice, I din’t think. Da, call light’s on, I gotta go.”
“Since our investigations indicated that it was indeed a failure of the drug that led to the capture, we will extract your brother from his current situation. We will place him with your other brother to wait a successful outcome of this business.”
The screen blanked.
Worm swore and reestablished the link with his father to let him know about this turn in their collective fate.
4. Pillory is Not a Nice Place
1
When the Pillory shuttle landed, Shadith stood, the servomotors of the exo doing most of the work and the muscle braces shifting to optimize their restraints. She sagged everywhere-which was disconcerting because she had thought she was in fairly good shape. And Digby was right about the Kliu trying to template her; she could feel the exo’s defenses powering up as probes licked at them. The interference waves gave her a low-level headache that was like an itch inside her skull.
The shuttle was the one the Kliu used to transport prisoners. The seats were fitted with massive restraints, there were ominous apertures with metal snouts in them, the unpainted walls were scratched and dull, marked with stains she didn’t want to think about.
She tapped alive the robot mule, clicked along behind it to the exit and stood waiting for the lock to cycle open, wondering as she waited if transporting her in this thing was
a deliberate insult. It seemed likely. Well, Shadow, take it as a warning and let Autumn Rose be your model. Cool is it. Losing your temper isn’t an option.
She wrinkled her nose as the slide chunked back, exposing a battered wooden ramp shoved up against the shuttle. The air smelled like the backside of all the Star Streets she’d ever walked through.
She let the mule haul her gear outside, then followed it down the ramp, happier with the exo as it settled into the performance mode it was made for. A juvenile Kliu was waiting at the foot of the ramp, a crocodilian centaur, his six stubby legs stirring up the noisome dust of the enclosure, the lips of his eating mouth clicking together with disgust and disgruntlement. His ears were rolled tight-which was another sign of discourtesy if the-diplo guide Digby had secured for her was accurate. He was signaling that nothing she said had-enough worth for him to bother giving her mOre than the most marginal attention.
He swung his body around and marched away as soon as she reached the end of the ramp, his clawed feet going stomp stomp crunch crunch creak creak, the thick arms swinging, hands closed into fists. Digby said they squealed as if he were chewing on their soft parts when he insisted his agent look over the scene herself. He had to threaten to give back the advance three times before they capitulated. It was obvious they grudged every second of her presence on planet. Their suspicions weren’t all that unjustified either, considering Digby’s instructions about remembering and reporting everything she saw.
With the mule humming beside her and the exo doing its job, cradling and supporting her and powering her walk, she followed her escort through a series of dingy, badly lit corridors. Empty corridors. Servant stairs. So I won’t offend their delicate eyes with my alien verminhood.