The Beauty of Our Weapons

by Jilly Paddock

  I trod water to watch it swim away, cutting a double arrow of cold neon-blue through the black water. Only when it was lost to sight around the point did Jeb start to laugh.

  “Your face, girl! Oh, it was a real picture when our friend Flipper there began to talk! Constructs are smart-beasts and most of them have the power of speech. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Of course I did.”

  His amusement increased by a power of ten. “Zenni didn’t tell you, huh?”

  “Perhaps I didn’t ask the right questions.” Meeting another of Tambouret’s wonders face to face left me uneasy; such a strange, disquieting amalgam, a poor, mixed-up creature whose DNA knew itself to be a dolphin but whose artificial mind did not. I shivered, unequal to the riddle.

  “Cold?” Jeb squeezed my hand. “Let’s go back to the beach.”

  We lounged on the water’s edge, like mer-folk in the glittering pale blue sea-foam. Jeb kissed me again, carefully, as if I was fragile tissue that might crumple under his lips, as if he was reluctant to touch my skin.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Be Anna for me.” His usually crooked smile was almost a grimace and hurt crouched in his eyes. “Wear her face, please.”

  “If it’s that important to you.” I altered my colours and felt his relief wash over me like the seventh wave.

  Some things are pure fantasy, even in Paradise. Sex in the surf is at the top of my list, with kilos of loose sand eager to worm its gritty way into all those tender, vulnerable little places, water cold enough to shrink even Casanova’s ardour, and mistimed waves to fill mouths and eyes with the sting of salt. We tried to ignore all these minor irritations, going beyond simple folly to a level of bravery that bordered on the heroic. It was a matter of personal pride that Jeb was the first to admit defeat. “Bad idea?”

  “I think being skinned alive would be less painful!”

  “Sure gets my vote!” Jeb agreed ruefully.

  We retreated to my room, showered off the niggling sand grains and settled for a nap instead, curled together in the damp companionship of my narrow bed.

  ***

  Sunlight burned a path across my face, forcing my eyes shut again as I tried to wake. I blinked, lost in the desert hell-hole of old nightmare, then someone moved next to me and cast enough shadow to allow me to focus.

  “Hi there, changeling,” Jeb said, propping himself up on one elbow to shield me from the unrelenting daylight that streamed in from the balcony. “I go to bed with Anna and wake up with Caron. Confused? You will be.”

  I twisted a copper-red curl into the scope of my vision. “When did I change back?”

  “Sometime before dawn. I was dozing and didn’t see the faeries work the switch.”

  Ooh, I’ve never been called that before! Zenni giggled inside my skull. Can I stay on the link or shall I take another hike?

  Stay, and give me an update on our mission status.

  Such formality! Lyall’s still asleep and Meeka’s pretending to eat breakfast. It’s moderately early by local time, just after nine a.m. Tambouret wakes up slow, since it’s geared up to be a holiday world.

  “Is he scolding us for taking a lie-in?” Jeb asked, recognising that my concentration had turned inwards.

  “Not at all—I think he’s encouraging it. Want to stay for breakfast?”

  “Now that’s my Anna, the greedy little piglet I know and love—”

  There was a sudden pounding on the door, loud enough to wake the long-dead and hard enough to make me worry that the wood might splinter under the unknown fist.

  Jeb frowned. “Who the hell’s that?”

  I reached out to brush against a Tambou mind locked and barred against my lightweight scan, touching an aura of arrogance and absolute confidence, although its owner would undoubtedly declare himself resolute, brilliant and brave. That was enough to let me guess his identity. “Oh no, it’s that buffoon of an investigator!”

  Height and weight of the unknown are an exact match with those of the Tambou, SantDenis. Zenni confirmed. He mustn’t find a strange man in your room. That would severely compromise your cover.

  I pinched Jeb in the ribs. “Quick, get out of bed and hide!”

  “But I’m your husband—” Jeb’s raised voice was drowned out by a second peal of thundering on the door.

  “Caron doesn’t have a husband, stupid! You have to get out of sight.”

  “Ignore the jerk and he’ll go away.”

  “You’ve not met him—if I don’t talk to him now I think he’ll batter that door down!” I shoved Jeb out of the bed, lurched upright myself and scrabbled into a robe. “Get into the bathroom and keep quiet. Most of all, don’t laugh, or you’ll set me off, and don’t let him see you, but if the idiot has the gall to try anything, please be my knight in shining armour and mount a rescue pretty damn quick.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll explain later—now just go!” I scooped up our clothes from the floor and threw the bundle after him. My aim must have been good, judging from the muffled curses that issued from the bathroom. “Ssh!”

  I got to the door partway through the Tambou’s third bombardment and let Caron open it with evident trepidation. “What’s the matter? Where’s the fire?”

  “Felicitations on this fine morning!” Today SantDenis was dressed in tight burgundy velvet with ruffles of lace at wrist and neck, for all the world like the fifth musketeer, lacking only a wide hat with ostrich plume to doff at the nadir of his deep bow. “And aren’t you a sound sleeper, my dear? Late night, eh?”

  “My inner clock doesn’t agree with yours.” I rubbed Caron’s eyes with one hand and clutched the robe up to her chin with the other.

  “You’ll synchronise in a day or two,” the Tambou said, with near-criminal good humour. “Will you take breakfast with me? Good—on the main terrace, in ten minutes.”

  Without giving me space to answer, he turned smartly on his heel and marched along the corridor at a measured pace. This morning his hair and spinal crest had been combed and plaited from crown to sacrum, then teased out into a tail that swished in time to his movements. I had to cover my mouth to imprison the laughter as I locked the door.

  “Nice being.” Jeb observed, propping up the arch into the bathroom. “Shame about his dress-sense. Are you going to take up that kind invitation?”

  “I don’t really have any choice. He’s been assigned to Chandre’s case and I need to pump him for information. It wouldn’t be nearly as bad if my loathing for him was mutual, but the little toad seems to like me!”

  “Poor little girl, stuck with such a dirty job!” His grey eyes twinkled with wicked humour. “And talking of work, I ought to be elbow-deep in it back on Brimstone. Send me back, huh?”

  I wasted a few seconds in a kiss. “Don’t slave too hard.”

  “And you stay out of trouble.”

  That won him a grin. “If I did that, wouldn’t I be boring?”

  With a touch on the cheek I flipped Jeb back to the spacecraft’s flight deck, waiting for his sigh of relief at emerging unscathed from limbo and Zenni’s confirmation of his safe arrival before snapping back to my mission. I found Caron some fresh clothes, a baggy T-shirt with a gaudy rainbow across its front and a pair of cropped leggings spectrum-striped to match. I added a green visor to keep her hair back from her face and a pair of canvas pumps to complete the look, which was somewhat on the daring side for the young colonist. Anna would sooner have had her teeth pulled than wear it.

  SantDenis had chosen a table slapbang in the centre of the terrace. Not for him the sidelines, but always life in the limelight. He stood to greet me with a theatrical bow, then made a great show of adjusting my chair, playing to the audience of other guests. “You look—how shall I put it?—ah yes, ebullient this morning, Miss McVeigh. Such festive colours, so young, so fetching!”

  He has a similar opinion of your clothing as you do of his. Zenni translated, with satisfaction.

  Oh goood! On
the outside I smiled. “Why, thank you for the compliment, Investigator!”

  “No, no—titles are so burdensome, don’t you agree? I shall call you Caron and you shall call me Herculeon, and then we’ll get on famously.”

  Isn’t this going well? my partner muttered.

  I shushed him and turned my attention to breakfast. SantDenis had ordered for both of us—why did that surprise me?—and I had to settle for over-sweet pastries and weak tea, while he attacked a slab of bread drenched with sticky grey-green gloop.

  “What is that? Animal, vegetable or mineral?”

  “It’s goumba, a native seaweed steeped in spices and boiled in brine and vinegar.” SantDenis scowled. “It’s a delicacy.”

  “And I thought that porridge was the only grey food in the galaxy!” I let Caron make gagging noises.

  “Our cuisine is the best in the universe,” the Tambou said, disdaining false modesty. “Its character of sharp contrasts and extraordinary blends of flavours put it far beyond the appreciation of tainted off-world palates.”

  “Oh really?” I hid a sneer in my teacup. “I’m flattered that you’ve asked me to breakfast, of course, but is there any other reason you want to talk to me?”

  SantDenis gave me a wide, astonished look, magnified by his lack of brows. “But, my dear child, we had arranged an assignation, that social nicety your less erudite culture pleases to call a date. This meal is in lieu of dinner, a poor substitute I know, but circumstances have conspired against us. You cannot spend this beautiful day in my company, much to my regret—purely a matter of business, you understand.”

  “Oh dear, what a shame.” I managed to hold down my glee. “I’ll survive.”

  SantDenis reached across the table to pat the back of my hand, not noticing that I squirmed under his touch. “I’m sure you will. So, my dear Caron, what diversions had you in mind for today? A bathe in the sun or the sea, or a more active sport like water-skiing or pony-trekking perhaps?”

  “I’m going to explore the Forest of Dreams.” I rested my chin on one hand and let wistfulness cloud Caron’s green eyes. “Such a wonderful name, full of magic and promise! Surely it must be a nest of ancient mysteries, of heroic legends and tragic romances? Are there any ruins or tombs I might visit? Oh, do say there are!”

  “A keen student of folklore, eh? Yes, there are scores of tales entwined amongst the branches of our enchanted forest.” His voice took on a richer timbre and I realised that I’d hit on one of his lesser interests, a subject he could discourse upon at great length, until his listener achieved at least trance state if not full unconsciousness. “My favourite of the batch is said to have happened long ago and concerns two brothers who became lost in the forest. Tambouret was wilder then, with vicious prides of black-dog hunting in the woods and ’stalts of taribeor on the wing after dark—”

  “Stalks of what?”

  SantDenis harrumphed at my interruption. “Gestalts of taribeor—cold-blooded invertebrate things as big as both of your hands with flesh as transparent as glass. They flew in flocks, like bats, and exsanguinated each hapless victim.”

  “Yeugh!” An image leaked out of his mind and I shared in Caron’s instant disgust at the very notion of airborne, vampiric flatworms. “Tell me there aren’t any of those horrible creatures left in the forest, please do!”

  “None have been sighted for centuries.” The Tambou tapped the middle of his chin with a forefinger and winked at me. “But you never can tell.”

  That’s a wind up. Zenni reassured. Unless some idiot has cloned up a ’stalt, taribeor are extinct.

  I allowed my persona a visible shudder. “I hope I never meet any. Go on with your story, please.”

  He scarcely needed the prompt. “And so the brothers were lost in the Forest of Dreams, alone and on foot. Denied the light of either moon, hidden even from the friendly stars, what could they do but find a clearing, build a little fire, try to sleep? It was believed then that no-one could spend the night in the Forest and remain unchanged—some people still think that even now. When morning came and the brothers were found, one claimed to have been visited by the djinn, Tambouret’s blessed guardian spirits, who had inspired him with extraordinary wisdom, while the other... well, he was little better than an imbecile, for what he had seen had driven him stark, staring mad.”

  He’s good, isn’t he? Zenni mused, as the little investigator paused for effect.

  Very. As Caron I looked spellbound, breathless with childlike excitement. “What a wonderful story! Do you know any more?”

  “Many, many more, little miss.” SantDenis basked in my approval, plumping up his ego as if it was a fat cushion. “There’s one age-old superstition that at the heart of the Forest you can find a way into the underworld, a kind of gate into Hell itself. Then again, we have our own version of the Erl King—a chilling tale of an evil wizard who lives in a cavern deep below the mountain, in a castle of ice, or was that glass—”

  “Good morning, Inspector.”

  I glanced up into Meeka’s face, past a paper-thin smile and into weary, hollow eyes. She didn’t look back at me.

  “Mrs Jansen.” SantDenis nodded, almost as sorry to see her as I was. “And will you join us?”

  She sat down, resting clenched hands on the tabletop. Her dress matched her mood, slate-grey and severe. “Frankly I’m surprised to find you here. Have you found my child yet?”

  Was it possible to shake his confidence? He spread his hands in an expansive gesture. “The investigation continues. These things take time, my dear, especially when the evidence is thinner than a slick of oil on water. But don’t worry your little head—I shall find both of them, safe and sound. Herculeon SantDenis never fails.”

  He believes that implicitly. Zenni wavered between awe and contempt—the deciding electron froze on the latter. To be so utterly convinced of one own’s rightness... it’s incredible!

  “That may be the truth or it may be a proud boast.” Meeka shrugged. “Whichever, I can’t trust my baby’s life into the hands of just one man. I’ve spoken with Earth’s vice-consul this morning and he’s agreed to request urgent help from Terrapol.”

  “As you wish, Mrs Jansen. I shall, of course, be willing to liaise with any agent they see fit to assign to the case.” SantDenis rose and made his farewell with a stiff half-bow. “Now, unless you wish to detain me further, I shall be about my business. I may see you tonight, Caron. Enjoy your day.”

  We watched him stalk away, swishing that ridiculous horse’s tail. He passed close to the hotel’s receptionist and shared a few words with her, at which she simpered and moved away with a saucy swing of her hips.

  “So it’s ‘Caron’ now, is it?” Meeka observed. “Don’t I get any thanks for rescuing you from the creep?”

  “I was trying to milk him for information.” I relented and curled my lip in a fragment of a smile. “Take a small piece of gratitude on account—he wasn’t much help. How soon will Terrapol be able to get their agents here?”

  “If they’re sent out from Earth, three or four days at best, or so Sheridan says.” Meeka squared her shoulders and managed to meet my gaze. “I hope you can find her before that.”

  It was a shaky attempt to make a truce between us, but I could bend enough to take the olive branch. “I’ll do the best I can, I promise you.”

  “Excuse me, Madame Jansen.” The receptionist paused at our table. “Mail for you.”

  Meeka took the letter gingerly and, as the Tambou moved on, let it fall from her numb fingers. It was so ordinary and unthreatening, a simple off-white envelope addressed in stark black pen—Jansen, Opal Garden.

  “I can’t open it!” A pulse fluttered in her throat and her terror clutched at me like quicksand. “You read it, please!”

  I didn’t touch it for a moment, waiting for Zenni to run a scan. Only one set of prints, Tambou.

  The receptionist? The flap was stuck down firmly and I used a nail to rip it open. Inside was a single sheet, folde
d once. The message was in block capitals, ultra neat but oddly spaced to form the words.

  Stencilled in standard black ink, my partner declared. And no prints again, apart from yours.

  How do you know what my fingerprints look like?

  EI has them on file.

  Trusting souls, my employers! I registered Meeka’s growing impatience and read out the missive in a low voice. “It says ‘Madame Jansen, we have something you want. By good fortune, you have something we desire. A trade could be arranged, to our mutual advantage. We will make contact again before midnight.’ It isn’t signed.”

  She snatched the paper out of my grasp and glared at it, vainly trying to make it say something else, something that would offer her some hope. “This is evidence, our only clue. We need full forensic testing on it, and I don’t see how we can get that done on this anti-tech planet—”

  “No need. It’s clean. We’ve checked it out.”

  “You’ve checked it?” Meeka swallowed. “Silly of me—how could I forget what you are? Is there nothing to help us at all?”

  “Whoever put this together knew what they were doing; they wore gloves and used a letter-stencil to disguise their writing, probably the nearest they could get to a typewriter or print-box on Tambouret.” I quoted the data that Zenni filtered down the link. “I wonder if they sent Lyall one?”

  ***

  We found the telepath on his balcony, stretched out on a sun-lounger with a gaggle of pillows, a rug over his knees and a pot of coffee within easy reach.

  “So you’ve mended enough to get out of bed?” I had to admit that he looked three hundred percent more lively than yesterday. “It’s a miracle!”

  Lyall shook his head. “It’s all down to room service. The staff were helpful far above and beyond the call of duty when they discovered how unwell I was.” He fluttered a sheet of paper. “They also delivered this.”