And I’d possibly gained something out of it. The Scats had accepted the truly awe-inspiring bribe, euphemistically called a reward, urged on them by the Drapsk. But their frills had pulsed with anger. I thought I might just be able to convince them to side with me, next time.
If there was a next time. I was back in the same room. The fresher stall had been repaired, the toiletries replaced, and the doorplate made thoroughly tamper-proof. The huge platter of useful fruit had been pointedly replaced by a bowl containing one mild-smelling musk melon, its seeds already removed.
“Well, they’re serious about this competition,” I said to the ceiling, not particularly concerned about eavesdropping.
I wondered what the Drapsk would do when I refused to compete.
“That’s not possible, O Mystic One,” Skeptic Copelup assured me in a warm, soothing voice, the merest hint of anxious rocking to and fro in his stance. “Just not possible at all.”
“And I assure you it is,” I replied calmly, pulling the sheet closer to my chin. My staying in bed had perturbed the Drapsk who brought my breakfast. That worthy had sucked a couple of tentacles as it considered the situation.
When I announced I wouldn’t get up until they let me leave, the poor being had scurried for help.
Help had arrived within minutes, in the form of the Skeptic accompanied by two Makii Drapsk, one I was relieved to recognize by the ribbon faithfully tied to his tool belt as Captain Maka. A Human reaction to the familiar, I scolded myself, knowing full well none of the Drapsk was likely to be in favor of my leaving—especially not the one who’d brought me here in the first place.
“You cannot ignore the needs of the Tribe,” Copelup went on, as though this was the ultimate argument. “Unless you are unhealthy, you must rise, O Mystic One. Eat your breakfast and come with us to meet the other Contestants.”
Curiosity tempted me, but not sufficiently to abandon what was beginning to look like a worthwhile strategy. I snuggled farther down, nothing loath to get more comfortable in the process. “Maybe I am unhealthy,” I offered in a weak voice, careful not to commit myself until I knew how the Drapsk might react. “Or maybe you’ve exhausted me. All this stress and running about,” I continued. For all I knew, claiming illness could get me locked away in some med area for weeks while they searched in vain for a malady to cure. Then I had a brilliant idea. Maybe. “Take me to the Makmora. I’d like to see Med Makairi. He’s been caring for my injury.”
“I am Makairi, O Mystic One,” said the Drapsk wearing Captain Maka’s ribbon.
“Oh,” I blinked. “Glad you are here,” I added, while wondering what on Drapskii the med was doing wearing Maka’s tag. But any delay could provide opportunity. “You should examine me. I may have strained something—”
“This is the Captain of the Makmora, O Mystic One,” the remaining Makii Drapsk broke in, obviously trying not to inhale its tentacles. Its plumes were erect and tense. “Why should you wish him to examine you?”
The Med was now the Captain? I sat up, forgoing my feigned weakness in surprise. “Where—or what does Maka do now?”
“I am Maka,” said the ribbonless Drapsk, rocking back and forth in unison with Captain Makairi. I was upsetting the creatures without knowing exactly how. I thought they knew I couldn’t identify individuals.
Or wasn’t that the point? They hadn’t put on ribbons to identify themselves, I understood suddenly. They had put on ribbons to identify their shipside roles for me. I’d needed to know who was the Med, not who was Makairi.
Which didn’t explain why Makairi now wore the Captain’s ribbon.
Copelup was the only Drapsk not distressed. In fact, he waved his chubby little hands around in amusement. “Calm yourselves, Makii,” he said with what had to be a chuckle. “You are not offended by the gripstsa occurring without you, are you, Contestant Morgan? It was overdue on the Makmora—the crew was becoming quite fatigued waiting for your return.”
“How can I be offended or not when I don’t know what gripstsa is?” I replied reasonably, working to copy the guttural roll of the new word as I wondered if they’d ever clearly explain anything to me.
This occasioned a sudden silence. Judging by the directions of the antennae, and the slow rippling of their plumes, I was being excluded from some conversation again. “Copelup,” I warned.
A yellow antenna tip bent my way. “Yes, Mystic One. Our apologies. Just a moment.”
I pulled the sheet right over my head and growled to myself. They ignored me. When it grew too stuffy underneath, I poked my head out again. There’d been no movement by any of the three I could detect. Were they arguing, resting, or being briefed in some new way to deal with this ever-difficult Mystic One? Maybe, I hoped, they’d decide I was just too much trouble to keep around.
“Copelup?” I hissed, reminding them I was still in the room.
The three moved immediately to stand in a line, so close I could have touched the nearest, Maka, had I wished. Their body postures were identical, tentacles forming rosettes of determined red. Some decision or other had been made, I thought uneasily.
“We will show you gripstsa,” Captain Makairi stated firmly.
“But not perform it, of course,” Maka, whose new rank they hadn’t bothered to tell me, added as if this was vitally important.
“Proceed,” order Skeptic Copelup impatiently. “The Mystic One has no time for your blathering.”
I disagreed, but to myself. If it gave me any inkling what to expect from the Drapsk, Maka could blather for another hour.
Still, what was happening was intriguing. The former Captain and his replacement took up positions facing one another, moving together until they could touch. Their tentacles disappeared into each others’ mouths in a gesture at once intimate and surprisingly dignified, while their plumes fell over their backs as if avoiding any chance of contact. Their eyes closed.
“If this was true gripstsa,” Copelup said in a hushed, respectful voice, “each would exchange—” he searched for a word, then raised his hands in exasperation. “—the nearest concept in this language is ‘experience with the outside world,’ but that’s completely inadequate, you understand.”
For no reason I could later remember, unless it was a Human-like hunch, I opened the thinnest of cracks between my own consciousness and the M’hir. I was astonished to detect the merest breath of a potential connecting the two Makii—less than a pathway but far more presence in that space than I’d detected before. Almost instantly, all three Drapsk broke their tableau, turning to face me with plumes pointing in my direction. I waited until I felt the potential fade from the M’hir before withdrawing my own sense from it, confirmation if I needed any that these beings did what I’d thought no other species but mine could do: push some of their consciousness out of normal space, into that otherness.
While they’d obviously responded to my presence in the M’hir, all Copelup said was: “True gripstsa is essential before members of the Tribe can exchange duties, O Mystic One. Do you comprehend now? This ritual permits each individual to learn what it must about the role of the other.”
“So following gripstsa, everyone on the Makmora, all the Drapsk crew I met there, have different jobs now. And they can all perform them as well as their predecessors.”
“Naturally.”
Fascinating. No wonder it was advisable to address every Drapsk one met offworld as ‘Captain.’ Eventually, it would be true. “How often do you do this—this switching about?” I’d been about to say “reprogramming” but recognized that as my own prejudice—I’d become familiar with the Human model of promotion: rising by accomplishment through the ranks of a ship’s crew. Different ways, I reminded myself. That of the Drapsk must work; their ships were models of efficiency.
The Captain answered: “Gripstsa has no schedule or predictability, O Mystic One. It may follow a stirring event—such as your arrival as Contestant for the Makii—or a period of long inactivity. Both of these tend to ma
ke individuals less content with their place and wishing for change. Gripstsa preserves harmony within the Tribe.”
I had a too-vivid image of being on a ship full of Drapsk who suddenly and simultaneously abandoned their duties to grapple with one another in a frenzy of gripstsa. One hoped there were adequate automatics.
I also felt guilty. The Drapsk had been generous and kind, if overwhelming, hosts. “My coming set this change happening on the Makmora? I’m sorry if I disrupted—”
A soft touch on my hand from the plumes of the newest Captain. “It is an honor to gripstsa from the knowledge of great things to come for all, O Mystic One,” he said warmly. “It is our duty to thank you for this.”
Skeptic Copelup harrumphed. “I think that is all the Mystic One should hear about the matter, don’t you, Captain?” He spread his short arms as wide as they would go. “Now will you please get up?”
“Please?” added Maka. “It is so important, O Mystic One.”
The three of them stood motionless, waiting for my answer. I sighed, more annoyed with my own inability to resist them than with their persistence.
“For breakfast,” I offered. “Then—then we’ll see.”
INTERLUDE
It never paid to ignore the details, Barac thought to himself with disgust, half-minded to turn around and confront his pursuers. But that confrontation, though appealing emotionally, made no sense at all when one was outnumbered.
Outnumbered and uneasy. Barac touched the M’hir more firmly this time, sensing nothing but the currents of energy typical in a place visited by Clan, left behind by the passage of thought or matter. He was tempted to push himself elsewhere as well.
But then he wouldn’t know why they chased him.
There were five at least. He’d stopped in front of an art dealer, the polished metal surface of a frame’s edge giving him an inconspicuous mirror. Human males and scruffy-looking ones at that.
One was the Human who’d collided with him at the base of the ramp, supposedly by accident. Details.
Barac kept walking, staying carefully in the midst of the crowd but now heading opposite to his original direction. No point leading them, whoever they were, to Morgan. Unless it became necessary, he thought, amused.
The thought of Morgan triggered another, and Barac slipped his hands into the pockets of his coat, searching as unobtrusively as possible for anything that shouldn’t be there. Morgan had planted a tracking device on him once before. Typical Human trickery. The Clansman didn’t know whether to be relieved or otherwise to find nothing unusual.
He crossed into one of the night-zones, portlights dimmed to imitate stars, the floor and passing customers streaked with lights of various colors and intensities from the establishments on either side of the concourse. It was immediately noisier, with the bass sounds of percussion vibrating through the flooring and his brain. Barac sighed. He was fond of dancing.
Right now, however, his dancing was around those moving too slowly in front of him. Somehow he doubted those behind were after his credit chip. He needed to lure them into a place of his choosing. One hand had stayed in his pocket, caressing the stock of the one piece of technology Barac kept with him at all times, his force blade.
“Excuse, Hom? I believe you dropped this?” A soft voice from behind, female. Barac stopped and turned, knowing it for a trick, but willing to face them here if that’s what they wanted. What could they do to him in a crowd of hundreds? Besides make a scene sure to rouse the ever present security guards?
It was the Human female from the tag point, smiling as she held out a small bag, like those carried by almost every other shopper passing them. They might have been enclosed in some force shield, the way the crowd split mindlessly around and past them.
Barac tasted foreboding and ignored the sensation. He’d already noticed the other figures coming closer, stopping to make a semicircle to either side of the female, the one who’d bumped him earlier farthest to Barac’s right. Six to his one. Not bad odds, he thought.
“You know that’s not my bag. What do you want?” the Clansman asked mildly.
“You’re Barac sud Sarc, aren’t you,” a dark-skinned Human stated rather than asked. “One of the Clan.”
Barac scowled but didn’t bother denying it. He hadn’t hidden his identity to board Plexis—lazy perhaps, but he’d been in too great a hurry to take the time to arrange an alternate credit account. There was usually almost no bureaucracy tainting his travels, but Plexis asked proof of solvency for its gold patches.
“I repeat, what do you want?”
The Human from the ramp was wringing his hands together, visibly agitated, though by what Barac wasn’t sure. “We want you to come, come, come,” the Human said suddenly, drawing startled glares from his comrades. “We do. Yes. Now, come with us.”
“I don’t think so—” Just as Barac began to concentrate, feeling the time to leave these crazy beings was long overdue, two of the males lunged forward and grabbed his arms. Horrified by the contact, and definitely not willing to take them along into the M’hir, Barac started to struggle. Where was security?
There was another way. He gathered his Talent, aiming a mental blow at the Human holding his right arm. It was turned aside.
Barac stopped fighting to free himself. Those holding him nodded approval and loosened, but didn’t release, their grips on his arms. He stared at them, reaching out with his deeper sense for any part of their thoughts.
Not the blankness, the unsettling emptiness of a mind-shield. He’d encountered that with the Enforcers and knew the sensation too well. No, what protected these minds from his power was innate and well-trained.
“All telepaths,” he gasped, watching the six nod one by one. He hadn’t known there were so many Human telepaths in this quadrant, let alone expected to see them in one place. Weaker than the weakest Clan, unable to touch the M’hir—or at least ignorant of its existence and potential, they had enough strength to resist him for a while. Not invulnerable and they know it, he decided, tasting a leak of anxiety from someone. He could likely overcome any one, given time. But, perhaps, not all six. Humans had a regrettable tendency to band together. “What do you want with me?”
“Come with us, quietly,” the one holding his left arm replied. Barac didn’t need to pull to judge the broad, bearded Human’s physical strength was greater than his own. It didn’t matter. No matter what these Humans thought they wanted with him, he wasn’t about to waste time with it. There were other, simpler ways.
He opened his mouth to call out, just as a needle pricked the side of his neck. “Never underestimate the value of a good gadget,” he could almost hear Morgan’s scolding.
The hands on his arms became the only things keeping Barac upright as the world around him dimmed. A face appeared, directly before his, harsh featured, with puckered scars framing cold and curious eyes. It moved closer, so close he took in warmed air with his next breath, so close Barac knew he’d never forget this Human.
Could no one in the crowd see what was happening? Perhaps they saw nothing alarming in friends supporting a being who’d had one too many at the nearby tavern. Barac felt his head spinning and desperately tried to push himself elsewhere. He couldn’t concentrate . . . couldn’t hold a locate . . . they were pulling him away.
“Barac! Glad I caught up with you!” The hearty voice penetrated through the fog dimming Barac’s perception of himself and his surroundings. His supporters seemed to vanish into the mist, his body falling almost to the floor before a new set of strong arms took his weight. “You have been misbehaving, haven’t you? Let’s go tell the Chief all about it, shall we?”
Barac rolled his head on his shoulder and desperately tried to concentrate. That careless grin and flint-hard eyes could belong to only one being.
A shame the trank was going to knock him out completely before he could say hello to Constable Russell Terk, Trade Pact Enforcer and personal assistant to the Sector Chief herself, Lydis Bowman.
A shame indeed.
Chapter 23
IT was, I had to admit, fun.
The urgency to find Morgan, to stop him before he foolishly risked himself, beat constantly in the back of my mind.
But at a moment like this, even that need could be tucked to one side. After all, how many beings could say they’d been given their own parade?
I rode with the Skeptic and an escort of four Makii in a bowlcar almost filled with flower petals. If we hadn’t stood the entire way, we’d have been invisible beneath them, despite the regrettable gaudiness of my Festival dress. I’d hoped, in vain, they’d forgotten about that. Our bowlcar drifted behind a stately procession of well over a hundred others, each bearing some dignitary or other. I’d lost track very soon after Copelup had proudly begun announcing each name and affiliation. Not all were Drapsk. Some were ambassadors or other offworlders invited to the Festival.
Behind us stretched a seemingly endless series of longer, lower bowlcars, these bearing what I was told was the entire living population of Makii—Copelup adding in a discreet whisper that in reality about fifteen percent had had to stay at various essential tasks, but I wasn’t to mention it. No flag or standard was necessary. It was like drifting along a river of purple and pink feathers.
We paraded along the broadest walkway I’d seen yet in Drapskii’s Port City, passing platform after platform lined with Drapsk of other Tribes. I’d been told there were only three Tribes competing this Festival; the evidence overwhelming as we reached the area where walkways from other quarters of the city crossed. There was another parade, predominantly white-plumed, passing overhead while underneath I could just make out a third, this followed by a stream of bowlcars carrying blue-green Drapsk.
I found myself humbled by a system that could assemble and move this many individuals so smoothly, and it wasn’t only the technology that impressed me. The Drapsk were like some tidal force moving through their buildings; a gentle, immense migration. How did I ever think I could avoid being part of this, I asked myself soberly.
Ties of Power (Trade Pact Universe) Page 19