by Jo Clayton
The membrane that sealed out the local atmosphere and mocked the mottled gray of the granite twanged as the car passed through it.
The weight of the mountain pressed down on her as the flimsy car scooted deeper and deeper into it. And even more oppressive was her growing fear that she wasn’t going to get out of this with mind intact. If Digby wouldn’t let her speak before he tried the probe… all she could do was try to short it out. Which would work once…
A second membrane squeaked. The bubble car stopped and stood shuddering on its supports as jets of fluid hammered at it from above, below and both sides.
After the wash was done, Shadith heard a series of clunks and clanks; then the car began gliding forward, drawn along by some exterior method of propulsion.
During the next fifteen or so minutes the car was scrubbed thoroughly, the air in it expelled and replaced repeatedly until she was as battered as the small vehicle, the body she couldn’t feel coughing with irritation from the sterilizers carried by that air.
The car passed through a third membrane and stopped. The gullwing doors swung up and the body moved stiffly out. It walked to a massive plug in the wall, waited for it to slide open, then stepped into a rock lined with shining white tiles where it was inundated once again with antiseptic fluids. If she could have, Shadith would have sighed with frustration and impatience.
Hair kinked into curls so tight and close to her head they hurt, throat raw and temper on the point of exploding, she moved with the body into a white room beyond the lock; it marched to a chair facing a wall, plopped itself down, and folded its hands in its lap.
The wall irised open.
Behind thick glass she saw a nude male body wrapped in a cocoon of wires and tubes, a Sustain unit almost as complex as those she’d seen on Ibex when Aleytys was hunting the last clues that would put her in touch with her mother. In a sort of irony she was in no mood to appreciate, it also looked rather like the crystal mass the Taalav had woven around Prangarris. Digby, she thought, the original, the one and only. Wonder how old he is? From how he looks, he was here before this world formed. Gods, unless I talk really fast, for sure I’m not getting out of here knowing that.
Digby’s simulacrum formed, translucent so she could see the outline of the body through it. “You’re aware,” he said. “You aren’t supposed to be aware.”
He gestured and her face came back to her control, her throat, her voice.
“I’m a lot of things I’m not supposed to be,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, her lips trembled, and it was difficult to speak, but the relief in that much relaxation of the lock was enormous. She tried not to let it affect her; she had to remain focused-and avoid the temptation to talk too much.
“How?’
“Practice:”
“That’s not responsive.”
“It isn’t, is it.”
He gestured again, and the chair she sat in began to shift around her.
“No!” She spat the word at him, rushed the rest of it while she still had the ability to speak. “Before you touch me, check Backhoe’s kephalos.” The chair froze in midshift and she went on more slowly. “I saw the destination code and I programmed it into a drone’s message flake. Along with my speculations as to what this was about. Aleytys should have it by now and be on her way here.”
The simulacrum looked away for a moment. When it turned back, she faced its fury with her first degree of hope.
“How?”
She’d gone over this moment again and again on the way here and had changed her mind as many times as she thought she’d finally made it up. On top of that, the Sustained body on the far side of the glass was a factor she had to fit into her reasoning and she didn’t have much time. Go with instinct, she thought. Trade him secret for secret. That might be sufficient to tilt the balance…
“I was hatched twenty millennia ago, Digby. You may be old, but you’re a child compared to me. For a long time you’ve wanted to know who I was, what I was. So listen. I was a Weaver of Shayalin, born to a family who danced dreams for the Shallana and any who caine to listen. You wouldn’t know of Shayalin. It was ash before your species left the ocean that spawned them. That’s what I was until. I died. Then I was a pattern of forces caught in the RMoahl Diadem and I watched the years pass through other eyes than my own. It was useful training. The techs who craft mindlocks have limited imaginations; they don’t dream of someone like me. When the Diadem came to Aleytys, after a while I traded eternity for mortal flesh. This flesh. We are sisters of the soul, Digby. We are more than sisters. I would die for her and she for me. More important to you, she’ll come for me and she won’t be alone. The Vrya will come because I know how to reach Vrithian and that’s not a secret they’ll trust you with. And there are the other souls I shared space with in the Diadem. Like Aleytys they are bound to me in ways you’d never understand. If they find a shell, not their sister soul, you’re dead. The Vrya and my soul’s kin, they’ll destroy this place and purge you from every inch of the systems you control until you simply do not exist any more.”
“And why should I believe any of that preposterous story?”
“Wait a few days. Vryhh ships are fast; it won’t take long for Lee to get here. Two weeks at most. The others might need more time, but they’ll come, too.”
“My defenses are considerable. What if I simply deny you’re here and let them do their worst?”
“That’s your decision. By that time you’ll have done your probing and your wipe, so I’ll be dead even if this body lives and I won’t care what happens to you.”
“Seyirshi, was right, you’re a mutagen, transforming everything you touch. I should have taken his warning and kept clear of you.”
“I survive,” she said. “One way or another. A bargain, Digby. You leave me and mine alone, I’ll go my way and not interfere with you.”
“I want to talk to Aleytys. Give me her call-sign.”
“If you’re thinking of infesting Tigatri’s kephalos, I warn you she’s self aware and apt to react murderously to intruders.” She saw the smug glint in the simulacnim’s eyes and sighed. “Send me out to Backhoe and I’ll make the contact for you. I don’t want to be under all this rock when you make an idiot of yourself and get your plug pulled. You’ve got control of Backhoe’s kephalos, so I won’t be going anywhere.”
The white non-corpse in the Sustain lay stony and immobile and for several minutes the gaze its spokesimage turned on her was as unyielding.
The body was still held in Digby’s grip, so Shadith could do nothing but sit and wait. She’d considered using the mindmove to attack the Sustain since Digby had unwittingly brought her close enough, but that might mean all systems would go out and the thought of being sealed into this hole in the ground nearly sent her reasoning paths into overload. She put that aside to save for a last and desperate stunt, taken in the hope that Aleytys would arrive before air and food were gone.
The body coughed, coughed again as the remnants of the disinfectant gas irritated its lungs.
The noise woke the simulacrum from its stasis. “The ship’s corn has been tied to the skipcom here. You can watch, but you won’t be permitted to speak once the connection is made.” A gesture and the last of the mindlock dissolved. “The car will take you back. This is not to be considered an agreement, you understand, but I am contemplating your offer.”
2
Aleytys’ blue-green eyes burned through the screen. “I don’t know if I want to listen to you, kak. Who threatens Shadow, threatens me. You’d better believe that.”
“I seem to have made an error in judgment.” Digby’s voice dripped penitence; he’d chosen a sad puppy look and was doing his best to project rueful contrition. “Is there some way we can resolve this difficulty without mutual destruction?”
“For one thing, you can stop trying to worm through Tigatri’s defenses. If you get her annoyed enough, she’ll seize your trace and do to you what you’re trying to do to her.”
“Hm. I think more than apologies are called for.”
In the Backhoe, watching this exchange on the forescreen, Shadith smiled. Squeeze the bort good, Lee, squeeze him till he squeals.
She blinked as the screen suddenly added a third cell as Harskari appeared and joined the conversation.
“Yes. Considerably more. Shadow is my sister, my daughter, Digby. Lee is not alone in this. Look to your health, you thing of painted light. We’ll pull your house down and melt your flakes to slag.” She was smiling as she spoke and her voice was soft, her dignity pulled like a robe about her.
Shadith was bouncing in her chair and grinning widely enough to threaten her ears. “Go get ’im, Mama Harskari.” She drew a deep breath, chortled as she watched Digby’s face go stiff and his eyes empty as he contemplated the nearly identical faces of the two women. The load was off her shoulders now, she could sit back and watch her soul-kin operate. For a little while she could revel in being a child again.
Digby seemed to sigh. “It was an extravagant tale… that your daughter, you say? Mm… that Shadith spun for me, but it seems she underspoke the truth. What do you require?”
“She is indeed the daughter of my heart and of our long companioning. In addition to her immediate return to us, WE,” Harskari laid stress on that word, “require indemnity deposited on Helvetia equal to one year’s gross income of Excavations Ltd; Aleytys will give you the details in a moment. As to what Shadith requires, you’ll have to ask her.”
3
The screen blanked and Shadith found herself in darkness; around her the faint, subliminal soughing of the ship’s life support was hushed. Digby’s voice was silky in her ears. “I can do more than stop the fans. I can evacuate the air from the ship and you’ll die gasping.”
A moment later the lights were back and a faint current of air tickled at the tiny hairs that curled about her face.
“That’s to remind you what happens if you drive me too far,” he said.
Shadith laughed and enjoyed the look on his face when he heard the freedom of the sound. “I’ve died twice already, why should I fear a third death?”
“Then why bother with your friends out there?”
“If I had to go, I wanted company. You’re wasting time, you know. My offer is still open. Leave me and mine alone and we’ll leave you your secrets and your life.”
“So I have to run every job past you to make sure I’m not violating your precious ambiance?”
“Leave legalisms to lawyers, Digby. You’re trotting out problems that don’t exist. Go about your ordinary business and there won’t be a pattern. If by chance you and I meet as adversaries, we can work out an accommodation or declare all-out war and see who emerges at the end. If you go after us again, you’ll make a pattern and we’ll know it. You haven’t any notion of the capacity of a Vryhh-designed kephalos; I suggest you don’t try to test it. If you do, we’ll come after you, the ones you know and the ones you don’t.”
“I could still fight this out. My Sanctuary is land-based and the atmosphere will limit the weapons your friends can bring to bear on me. Plus the fact that you’re sitting here, more vulnerable to them than I am.”
“Don’t count on that, Digby. There’s a lot you can’t know about Aleytys. Or Vryhh tech.”
“Threats about what I don’t know get thin very fast. I do not like the thought that I exist on your sufferance, Shadith. In fact it’s so unappealing, that I find myself just about ready to call you back in here and take my chances with your champions.”
“You can try.” Shadith sighed. “I’m not going to argue with you, Digby, or let you distract me. Agree or fight. Make up your mind.”
There was a long silence.
Shadith stretched out her legs, shut her eyes, and waited with what patience she could scrape together.
4
An hour later, the screen lit, split into cells with Digby’s simulacrum in one, Harskari and Aleytys in the other two.
The simulacrum put on a wry ruefulness and spoke.
“Let it be, then. A year’s gross profit into a specified account on Helvetia. And I give my word that I will not search out you or yours with hostile intent. Is that sufficient, Shadith?”
“It is sufficient.”
Epilogue-Tieing the Knots
Worm
Delala giggled as Worm swung his gathering scoop at the scuttling greel, missed, and swore as it dug itself back into the sand. She took her digging stick, popped another greel from his hole, and cooed as Worm got this one and dumped it into the basket.
Later, as he followed her along the path to the village, he heard a long, low whine and raised his eyes to see the bright seed of a lifting ship arcing across the sky. He watched it a moment, groping for a memory that wouldn’t come.
Delala looked over her shoulder. “Ke mo?”
“I’m coming, I’m coming, I don’t want to spill this.” He forgot about the ship and walked beside her, his mouth getting itself ready for the feast that night, his naming feast and his formal welcome into the Tung Bond.
Lylunda
The perpetual party in the Loft of the Buzzard’s Roost had come alive again two days after Lylunda reached Sundari Pit.
She wandered in, glanced around, took a glass of white wine from a serviteur’s tray, and went to lean against the wall, sipping at the wine while she watched Virgin and Hopeless dance a strutting pavanne to a tune provided by Henry the tentacled centaur as he used his physical advantages to play a harp-guitar.
“No pelar?”
Lylunda looked round, grinned at Qatifa. “You might say I’ve gone off the whole drug scene. Right now anyway. Didn’t expect to see you here, Qat.”-“You clear of that mess at Marrat’s?”
“Uh-huh. Why?”
“I’ve got this deal… a good one, it’ll set your belly grumbling when you hear it. But it needs two to make it work. You interested?”
“Sure. Been out of it too long, Dragoi’s all shaped up to run.”
“I’ve got a room over Junker’s Bar, say you meet me there tomorrow, Pit noon?”
“I’ll be there.”
Qatifa’s nose quivered with Caan laughter, her eyes were narrowed to golden slits. “‘Less you want to come home with me?”
“After the job’s finished, Qat. I just got out of one mess, I-don’t want to make another.”
“Po po, you were more fun when you were on the pelar. See you tomorrow.” Qatifa twitched a mobile ear, wriggled her nose again, and ambled off.
Lylunda emptied her glass, set it on a window ledge, and began her own circuit of the room. She was back in her chosen world, the scattered anarchy of the Pit Stop circuit; she had prospects for a job that was certainly dangerous and probably interesting. At the moment, life was very good.
Shadith
Supported by one of Harskari’s exos, Shadith sat on a tussock of rotten stone held together by the complex root system of the grasses that grew over it. She watched the Taalav moving with noisy cheerfulness about their adopted home, rambling in and out of the reddish shadow cast by the translucent shades Loguisse had set up for them, tending the shoots of the polychrome reeds that were already breaking the surface of the water in the small lake at the heart of this equatorial island. The other plants Harskari had snatched off Pillory seemed to be rooting themselves and growing with a similar enthusiasm.
A horde of infant body beasts were running about, getting underfoot, hooting with tiny but exuberant joy, and infant head beasts lay in slowly heaving piles, contributing their modulated hums to the noise. Most of the worm forms of the Gestalt had settled themselves in the mud at the edge of the lake, but here and there she could see a bright pink fingeroid popping out of the water to snap at the bugs skating on the surface.
Harskari and Loguisse were some distance off, supervising a clutch of ’bot gardeners as they set more plants in place.
The sun Avenar was warm on her back and the air heady in her nostrils. The gravity pulled at her and she was growing tired, but she was happy as she looked at the Taalav arrays working so diligently at settling into their new home.
It’s an object lesson, she thought. One phase of my life has closed and I don’t know where I’ll go from here, but at least I can rejoice that nothing is finished and everything is new again.
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