There! I did my best to stop quickly, which isn’t easy when you are in a current to start with and that current is filled with other beings using it to move around you as quickly as possible.
Paul and his companion weren’t hard to spot. Both were tall and, I had to admit, admirable specimens for their species. They were also the only Humans in the Grub Grotto, something, I also had to admit, that made the task of finding them easier.
As I’d hoped, their table was partially and conveniently screened from the wet corridor by a fystia bush—a specimen with a highly unlikely number of blossoms. I supposed the Prumbins tied on extra blooms so their deep, dark paradise gave visitors the requisite aura of plenty. Still, the plant was more than large enough to hide one Oieta—given I could reach it without being noticed, and resist the current in order to keep in place once I did.
The luggage sled served the first task admirably, although the Prumbin towing it had begun to look over its shoulder at me as if growing worried about my intentions.
It might have worried more, had it realized what I was doing while alongside.
I’d found very few advantages to being young in form, while mature in mind. Put another way, few forms allowed me to interact with other adults as the adult I was. Or would be soon, I added, inclined to self-honesty. Rarest of all was a form where being young was to my advantage, as now.
Newly-hatched Oietae were sessile creatures, staying glued to their original kin cluster for several molts. Old Oietae retired to this peaceful lifestyle, although they then had to suffer the attachment and attitude of every new generation until calcification. I was young enough to have the remnants of my holdfast under my second-to-last segment. By scraping away the accumulated keratin, which I managed to do while swimming with the luggage—multiple limbs came in handy—I was able to expose some of its sticky surface.
Ready, I waited until the current brought luggage, sled, Prumbin, and me opposite the fystia bush, then launched myself at the clearfoil between us, bottom-first.
There were times I knew the Cosmic Gods paid profound attention to me.
It did work. The current tugged at me, but I was firmly glued to the clearfoil and not going anywhere.
Unfortunately, I’d missed the bush entirely and was now glued, head down, mid-limbs widespread, and antennae flailing, ocular-to-eyeball with Paul.
I didn’t think being as green as the bush was going to help.
The Prumbins had, eventually and painfully, managed to scrape my nether end off the outside wall of their restaurant. Naturally, they’d ignored everything I said and proceeded to escort me to the office of Greeter Neram Marenelli Holdswisely, since her stamp showed so marvelously well against the glowing green of my humiliation.
Paul and his companion had been given another table. The only reaction from my Human had been to cover his mouth with one hand, quickly. I presumed he’d stifled a laugh; I didn’t expect to find him still amused when I returned to our suite.
The Greeter hadn’t been amused at all. She’d flared a solid crimson as the Prumbins had explained the situation and apparently intended to remain that color for the rest of the night. In its way, the red was every bit as intimidating as one of Ersh’s famed silences while deciding what to do with me.
At least the water let me dump heat without any problems, though I had to be careful to stay down current from the Greeter. As this was only polite, given the situation, I felt in no danger of being exposed as anything but an utter disgrace to the Oietae species.
“If you were that interested in watching others mate,” Greeter Holdswisely said, for the seventh time, “you could have gone to the upper level and joined the other aquatics in the wet half of the restaurant, sparing us this embarrassment.”
“Yes, Greeter.” I found it amusing the Oieta hadn’t considered for a moment that I might have been more interested in watching a pair of air-breathers, mating or otherwise, but kept the reaction to myself. It never paid to show you were entertained by those scolding you, especially if the scolding was for your own good.
“However,” she continued furiously, “such interest is completely unseemly in the Too-Young. You should still be attached to your cluster!”
“Yes, Greeter.”
“You know what this means, I trust?”
I couldn’t help a little blue of curiosity. Finally, something new. “What does it mean?”
Her red sides flushed with the purple of authority. “You will be sent home on the next Busfish. Fortunately, there is one leaving tomorrow. Your Soft Companion has been notified, in case you think you can avoid this penalty.”
This didn’t have quite the impact it might have had, given Paul would doubtless be satisfied with that decision.
“Yes, Greeter,” I said dutifully, turning myself a doleful beige.
I managed to elude the Prumbin assigned to return me to my room by the simple, if impolite, strategy of swimming just fast enough to make keeping up with me a significant effort. It had finally waved me on in disgust, veering away into the current of the next wet corridor. Doubtless another green smudge on my record—not that it mattered, now that I was being expelled from the Happy House.
Which, I thought with a twinge of irreverent pride, could be a first. Certainly Ansky had accepted a broad range of questionable behavior from her guests, so long as no one else was damaged. Paul might not approve of my achievement; Rudy would. I’d noticed the younger Human possessed a more liberal view of what was acceptable.
I let myself into my room and looked down for Paul in his, only to discover what I considered completely unacceptable.
He wasn’t alone.
The Human female, Wendy Cheatham, was sitting on the black syntha-hide couch, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. Her footwear was on the floor. My arrival coincided with her tossing her head back in a laugh at something Paul had said. He was on the other couch, sitting forward, eyes intent on his guest.
Only for an instant. Those eyes shifted upward, as though he had the ability to sense when I was nearby. Ersh had had the same uncomfortable gift.
I worked so hard to keep from turning green again that I ended up a disgusting mottled brown with pink streaks, all the while scooting backward until I reached the force mesh defining the topmost bubble of my suite. There I stayed, appendages dangling.
My effort to become inconspicuous wasn’t a success. I couldn’t opaque the floor and Paul had stood to stare up at me. But I could, I decided, refuse to move.
“Esippet, were you hurt?” His question, warm with concern, didn’t help. I went completely green.
“Don’t embarrass the child,” Wendy chided, coming to stand beside Paul but looking at him, rather than at me. “I’m sure it’s nothing time won’t heal.”
Paul didn’t appear convinced, so I flailed my limbs at him as proof all of Esippet Darnelli Swashbuckly was present and accounted for, managing to add a wan: “I’ll be fine.” In about a hundred years, I added to myself glumly. Or as soon as he removed our unwelcome guest.
We thought alike. My Human turned to her with that regretful smile I’d heard had made more than a few staff members of Cameron & Ki feel faint. “I’m afraid our evening’s come to an end, Wendy,” he began graciously. “Thank you for your company.”
She placed one hand on Paul’s chest, the other reaching playfully for the silver pendant he wore. “Are you quite sure?” she asked, running the chain through her fingers.
This was completely inappropriate behavior, I fumed to myself. Well, it actually wasn’t, considering our location and the graphic paintings of physical encounters on the walls—not to mention the abundance of floor space—but my muddy brown began to assume a significantly rosy hue as I let myself sink downward.
Paul ran a finger along the braids tumbling past her cheek and shook his head. “Quite sure,” he told her in that low, gentle voice that probably made such females rethink their plans for the future. “I’m sorry.”
“In t
hat case—” Wendy wrapped her hand around the pendant and ripped it free, stepping back in the same smooth motion. I flared pure red in shock and outrage.
Paul reached after it, then stopped short, holding himself so still I could barely see the movement of his chest as he breathed. “What do you want?”
Instead of answering, Wendy put two fingers inside her mouth and drew out a small black oval, like a seed. She flicked it aside, then held up the slender fist holding the pendant. “What I want . . . I have,” she told him in a new voice, a new voice that was an old voice, a voice like the rich velvet used to polish a blade.
A dead voice.
I pressed myself to the floor between us, turning white even as Paul named the impossible without hesitation.
“Skalet.”
Otherwhere
ON entering the Sacriss System, with its fifteen inhabited planets and busy intrasolar traffic, one had the impression of a highly technological culture. Negotiating with the various levels of authority, from the ubiquitous Port Jellies to local jurisdictions that were in many instances one building in size, gave the impression of dealing with an insanely bureaucratic one. Walking around the subequatorial Port City of Nastarsila, on Sacriss XIII, Rudy decided, was the fastest way to learn both were wrong.
This place had never experienced technology or organized government.
Rudy wiped sweat from his forehead and neck, tucking the already soggy cloth into a handy pocket, and consulted the city map. Nastarsila, like every Sacrissee city, was a maze of tiled walls peppered with tiny round windows and archways of various sizes. You could glimpse the buildings behind the walls only if you stood before the correct arch, at the correct time of day. There were no signs or streetlights; no aircars or ground vehicles competed with foot traffic and grav carts. If Rudy closed his eyes, the sweet tang to the air reminded him of standing outside a stable, early in the morning, after fresh straw and hay had been laid in every stall.
If he opened them, and looked behind, he’d see the spires of the starships forming the shipcity that sprawled, wall-less, noisy, and changeable, outside the city gates. The Russell III was one of them. He’d avoided the temptation to take a look at his former command. Time for that later, when he found a way to get on board.
The ancestral Sacrissee had been cautious, solitary herbivores, low-built and slender, to better lurk in the safety of dense underbrush; with huge eyes and ears, to detect any potential threat before coming out to graze; swift and agile, in case both eyes and ears failed. They’d maintained exclusive territories, except during the rut, marking boundaries with a variety of bodily excretions and rebuffing intruders of their own kind with a whiplike tail capable of cracking ribs.
As Esen was fond of saying, Rudy remembered, the evolution of sentience changed the world more than the species. For better or worse. The modern version of the Sacrissee remained cautious and solitary, attractive to Human sensibilities, and tended to rebuff visitors—usually without recourse to their still-dangerous tails, but not always. Sacriss XIII wasn’t the biological home of the species—that honor belonged to Sacriss VII—but its inhabitants had carved it into a copy distinguished from that home only by the shape of its land masses and the length of its calendar.
The Sacrissee had found a way to compromise between an economy that required an increasing population and a biology that demanded isolation. Evidence from early civilizations suggested individual Sacrissee had surrounded their crops and lairs with walls of brush and thorn, keeping the walls well-marked with fluids. To save effort and materials, walls were shared by adjacent individuals. Over time, these villages developed into cities as densely populated as any D’Dsellan hive, structured so the inhabitants could live almost entirely—and happily—as hermits.
Rudy consulted his map again, then counted the number of archways he’d passed since turning onto this street. Should be the place, he decided, stepping into the shadow of a generously-sized arch on the opposite side. Cooler, out of the sun, but not empty. The rapid scurrying of feet, along with a Sacrissee “hufff” of displeasure, meant he’d disturbed a resident—likely one taking a peek at the outside world before deciding to risk a venture to the market.
Cluttered along both sides with crates and barrels, the archway penetrated a wall several meters thick, itself hollowed into more dwellings. Servants, artisans, and shopkeepers lived within the walls themselves, occasionally renting rooms to offworlders. If he squinted, Rudy could make out the building protected by the wall, but it was difficult to see details. At this time of day, the sun reflected a fierce abstract rainbow from the building’s tiled surface. The Sacrissee would have peepholes everywhere possible to be able to admire the mosaic without having to admire one another.
There were peepholes lining the archway as well, their darkness glinting with shy, curious eyes. Rudy considerately avoided looking directly into any as he made himself comfortable on a barrel. It shouldn’t be long now.
Naturally, it was longer than Rudy’d hoped before his quarry appeared. He eased himself from the barrel, sure the manufacturer’s symbol was now a permanent imprint, as Michael Cristoffen walked into view. Rudy stepped closer to the archway opening, not making a sound. In spite of his care, peepholes cleared of their occupants with a series of breathless “hufff, hufffs.”
The cobblestone was a warm gold where the late afternoon sunlight brushed it. Elsewhere, shadows surrounded archways like tongues licking after scraps. When they filled the roadway, Sacrissee would start to emerge from their homes. They’d slip by taller, more social aliens with anxious little “hufff, hufffs,” more like desperately preoccupied accountants than ghosts, despite moving like spirits. Sometimes all one really saw was a length of tail lying outside a dark archway, where its owner had paused to look over its shoulder and forgotten part of its anatomy remained in view.
Once in a while, a rude—or curious—offworlder would catch a local in a beam of light. The Sacrissee, creamy fur dappled across shoulders and back with leaflike brown, would crouch in the glare, huge slit pupils constricting, long fingers stroking dark trails of fluid from the glands lining arms and neck as if its assailant could smell its outrage as other than a pleasant mint. The tail would twitch along its length, though the gentle Sacrissee were patient with offworlders as a rule. It took a too-close approach by one of their own to send tails lashing outward, the bones of the tip thickened to withstand the resulting force. There were nicks shoulder-high in wall tiles along the street, the marks of carefully timed but daunting near-misses.
Most considered the species harmless; some enjoyed doing business with partners who loathed meetings. But Cristoffen flinched as a Sacrissee ran past, seeking the anonymity of the next shadow.
Or was he afraid of something else?
The archway filled with another round of “hufff, hufffs.”
Something—someone—behind him.
Rudy shook the blister stick down from its holster into his palm, feeling its eager vibration as he wheeled around. Even as his eyes sought a target, his other hand reached for the barrel beside him, ready to fling it in the path of a pursuer.
Then he stopped moving, which seemed the safest course of action when staring down the glittering edge of a very low-tech knife, its point pressed to his throat.
Eyes reappeared in peepholes. The eyes regarding him over the knife were equally dark and liquid, if set into a Human face. A familiar one. Rudy didn’t quite relax, but he did venture an opinion. “There are other ways to say hello, Timri.”
Unsmiling, the Russell III’s comp-tech sheathed her knife and pulled him deeper into the archway. The Sacrissee “hufff, hufffed” and disappeared again. “Be grateful I waited to see a face first. What are you doing here, Rudy?”
Rudy tucked away his now-quiet blister stick, a non-lethal, intimidating, and thoroughly nasty weapon, usually favored by thieves. He preferred it to those which left gaping wounds; he wasn’t surprised to find Timri felt the opposite. “I’m here beca
use he’s here. Your busy Mr. Cristoffen.” No point denying the obvious.
“So you know.”
“Know what? That he believes every word of Kearn’s blather—or that Cristoffen is playing fast and loose with the Kraal?”
Timri shut her eyes briefly, as though holding in some emotion. “Both—and worse, much worse, Rudy. Thank goodness you’ve come,” she told him. “I didn’t know where to turn once I learned Cristoffen’s hunting us—Paul’s and Esen’s friends. He’s . . . he’s killed one already.” Her words began spurting out, faster and faster, like blood from an artery. “I overheard him bragging to Kearn. He has a list, Rudy. Not of all of us. My name’s not on it—not yet. But it’s only a matter of time before he tracks us down. I don’t know if Paul’s getting my messages—he hasn’t answered. I don’t dare—”
“These walls have ears, Timri,” he cautioned her, now thoroughly alarmed. Of all the people who might panic, he would never have picked Timri, who’d successfully spied on Kearn for fifty years, sabotaging his search for Esen from the beginning—sabotaging Rudy’s own, until he’d confronted her with evidence of her tampering. Other than Paul and Esen, she was the only one who knew Rudy shared their secret. If anything, Rudy would have thought her more likely to simply slit Cristoffen’s throat. Then again, with Kraal involved, that might not be enough.
“You’re right, of course. I’m sorry.” She took a deep steadying breath, then looked past him at the street. He heard a frown in the change of her voice. “He’s gone inside. I’ve been following him from the shipcity. How did you know to wait for him here? What is that place?”
“Trust me, our Michael will be in there a while. I’ll tell you why later. It’s more important that I get a look inside the Russ’ before he gets back. Let’s go.” Rudy waved his hand. The ensuing “hufff, hufffs” as their fascinated audience withdrew again made his point.
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