Hidden in Sight

by Julie E. Czerneda

  As they left, Rudy glanced at the archway Cristoffen had taken. Its Sacrissee peepholes had been filled with plaster, doubtless annoying the locals. Within the arch, a pair of Human-shaped figures stood watching the street. He couldn’t see the building they were guarding, but he didn’t need to—he knew quite well what it was.

  A Kraal weapons’ dealer ran a legitimate business, at least on Sacriss XIII, albeit not one you’d want next door. This address, and Cristoffen’s newly-made appointment, had been among Sybil’s “gifts.”

  On the way here, Rudy had made inquiries of his own. This particular dealer was of the sort the Kraal referred to as exclusive, specializing in fulfilling unusual requirements. They were rumored to offer experimental tech for sale, if you were among those desperate enough to play with untested means of dealing death.

  Kearn had used such technology against Esen.

  As Rudy walked beside Timri, he kept a smile on his face and made meaningless conversation about the local sights. Inside, his thoughts grew darker and darker, until he wished he’d brought something more permanent than blister sticks.

  The pieces were coming together, thanks to Sybil’s search for her traitor. The result wasn’t pretty, but had the feel of truth.

  Kearn, bringing his ship here so his protégé could visit a Kraal contact—a contact capable of supplying more than an assassin shield. Kearn, already prepping the Russell III for the hop to Picco’s Moon, where another of Paul’s Group could be a target. Kearn, who’d once come perilously close to believing Paul Cameron to be Paul Ragem, and Esolesy-ki to be Esen-alit-Quar.

  Paul and Esen, on the run, betrayed by Kearn?

  “Slow down,” Timri hissed. “You look as though someone’s chasing you.”

  Startled, Rudy obeyed so abruptly he collided with the Sacrissee trying to sneak around him. The smaller being let out a shrill “Sssshupppttt!” that was taken up by what sounded like every other of its kind in the city, even as the creature ran up Rudy’s back and leaped off into the safety of the crowd.

  “You’re not very good at being inconspicuous, are you?” his companion said, smiling until she caught a glimpse of his face.

  “Tell me how our friend Lionel has been, Timri,” Rudy said grimly.

  Sybil’s traitor would have to wait while he dealt with one of his own.

  19: Abyss Night

  ONE word rewrote the universe—and the last fifty years I’d spent in it.

  Skalet?

  “Stay as you are. Meet us in my rooms,” she ordered me, those wrong green eyes never leaving Paul, only the voice as I remembered. It wasn’t her.

  The floor became opaque, cutting me off.

  Was it?

  I scooted backward to the door with every bit of speed in this form, not daring to cycle, not daring to delay.

  Skalet?

  I tasted her memories, filled with misdirection, distraction, and disguise, her love of games and strategy, her lack of conscience. She’d hidden from me; now she showed herself. Why? Part of me feared for Paul’s safety, for my own.

  Part of me knew nothing but the flesh-deep need to rejoin the Web of Ersh—to share and assimilate what had been learned by each of us. As if that would be pleasant. There was no memory of mine I’d willingly give her; none of hers I’d want to know. It didn’t take the exchange of web-mass to tell me who had been Kearn’s mysterious Kraal backer—or who had destroyed our new lives.

  Still. I longed to cycle to web-form, to satisfy the craving. To be myself again.

  I feared that desire most of all.

  The way wasn’t in Skalet- or Ersh-memory. It lay within the giggles of Lesy-memory, the strangest web-kin of all. She’d liked secrets for the fun of discovering them, and found Skalet’s seriousness on the subject the perfect excuse to play spy. I’d enjoyed assimilating her single-minded efforts to ruin Skalet’s privacy, not that those had been the parts of Lesy-memory Ersh particularly wanted me to have. In her hunts, Lesy would find the most extraordinary vantage points; those, Ersh had deemed useful for me to know.

  The looks on Skalet’s various faces when Lesy uncovered her hiding places had been the bonus.

  The Happy House hadn’t been a challenge to a being of Lesy’s exuberant determination. She’d happily spent months as a Jylnic, pretending to have been hired to adjust force mesh from the outside, all the while peering into each and every transparent bubble. Most of what she’d seen clearly demonstrated the hazards of being interrupted by a curious spectator during cross-species’ sex, wet or dry.

  But she’d found Skalet’s lair in the underbelly of the fissure, a series of interconnected bubbles unlike the others, linked to the rest of the complex by only one set of corridors. Our web-kin had insisted on autonomy; Mixs had never argued with Skalet.

  So, thanks to Lesy, I knew the way. Straight down, if I’d dared go outside, but I was well aware my tender Oieta-self would be no more than a tasty nibble for an assortment of less-educated Abyss dwellers. Inside was hardly safer. The Prumbin authorities expected Fem Swashbuckly to cooperate and remain in her room until leaving tomorrow. They would not be pleased to find me swimming through this series of agonizingly indirect corridors like a pheromone-crazed Jylnic. Busy, transparent corridors, at that.

  Maybe everyone official would find their own emergency, somewhere distant. I did my utmost to avoid bumping into elderly beings and causing any such emergencies along my route, sculling around the slower floaters, unable to keep my integument from a desperate black and red. Any Oietae I passed flared a startled black in answer, then returned to their previous color, likely assuming I was fleeing a scolding from my elders.

  Instead, I was swimming to one. I had time to think—between almost dislocating my swimmerets trying to gesture apology for those unavoidable near misses—time enough to realize Skalet had planned this, too. She would have been impatient with any juvenile outpouring of emotion, disdainful of either anger or joy as irrelevant to our Web. To her way of thinking, this journey gave me time to compose myself properly.

  Ersh could have told her it wouldn’t work. In fact, I was becoming less composed every minute.

  Over to the junction, down to another corridor, follow that one to a sharp bend—too sharp, as a sled of luggage was being held by the current against the far wall, pinning a large, protesting Prumbin. I went up and over both. It had been too long since I’d thought as Esen-alit-Quar, I realized with despair. Too long since I’d interacted with others of my kind. I dredged up memory after memory even as I used my normally useless walking legs to propel me around the next corner, using the abdomen of a slower moving Human as a handy spring-off point. It had nothing to do with my form-self’s instinctive reaction to another of those shameful green suits. Well, not much.

  Skalet and I had never shared similar thought patterns, but we’d been of the same Web. We’d shared more than thought; our mass, through Ersh, had been that of one being, serving the same purpose, obeying Ersh’s Laws.

  But now? I’d lived as a scaly Lishcyn, with a Human web-kin to teach me ephemeral ways.

  Ersh was rock.

  And I was quite sure Skalet no longer served Ersh’s purpose or followed her Laws.

  She had taken Paul.

  I found I could swim a little faster.

  Skalet’s wet lock was standard fare, containing an emergency all-species’ bag instead of a suit. I closed the outer door, thinking various dark things I didn’t bother muttering out loud. Then I noticed the water was draining out of the wet lock faster than I could possibly slither my Oieta-self into the bag.

  Skalet at her best, I said to myself, as if the impossible were true. I was forced to cycle well before the floor was dry. She knew I hated wet fur. I tucked my com attachments into a holder along one wall, determined to make my own decision on the form I’d wear next.

  There was sufficient delay before the inner door opened for me to worry that she planned to flood the wet lock again, just for the fun of seeing what that fo
rm might be, considering I had little extra mass.

  But I was spared further indignity as the door opened. I hopped out quickly, just in case.

  I entered a room surely unique to the Happy House. Its walls were squared at the corners, every surface opaqued for privacy—as they’d probably been ever since Lesy peeked inside. Animal pelts from a dozen worlds fanned in a circle on the burnished stone floor, surrounding a table of the same substance, itself centered under a chandelier elaborate enough to have come from a battle cruiser. And probably had. The table was set for three, a chair in front of each collection of wineglass, plate, and other Kraal nonsense.

  I could almost hear Ersh’s sneer: ephemeral trappings. I agreed, but wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating them.

  The Human female I was to believe was Skalet sat there, Paul to her left. I guessed they’d arrived ahead of me by several minutes. Mixs had undoubtedly been asked to design shortcuts for our web-kin’s amusement.

  First things first. “Are you all right?” I asked my Human. The briefest of nods. She’d returned his pendant, I noticed. More theatrics.

  “What about me, Youngest?” Wendy/Skalet’s camouflaged eyes widened as if in dismay. “Aren’t you eager to learn how I have been?”

  “I know how you’ve been.” I let the lip curl up over my right fang and stay there. “Hidden. Safe. While others died.”

  Wendy/Skalet poured a clear, rosy liquid—serpitay—into each glass. “I see you still haven’t learned to conduct yourself appropriately during civilized conversation,” she commented, making a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue and teeth. “Sit, Youngest. If you must be insufferably rude and stay this pup, instead of matching form to your elders as you were taught, at least observe the essential courtesies.”

  I approached obediently enough, watching the growing satisfaction on her face as my paw touched the back of the chair. Smoothly and without hesitation, I continued forward and swept the table clear with both arms. Crystal thudded on dead hides and shattered on stone.

  Paul didn’t move. He kept his face schooled into a mask of polite attention, doubtless aware of his danger as the closest source of living mass to two web-beings of undetermined temper.

  “The courtesies are done,” I told her.

  Wendy/Skalet—Skalet—hadn’t moved either, beyond rescuing her glass of serpitay before I could reach it. “I see.” A small smile played over lips that didn’t belong on the face I remembered. Was the alteration cosmetic or permanent?

  “I liked your real face better,” I said.

  A shrug. “A change was advisable.”

  There was only one thing I wanted to know. “Why?”

  Her smile widened. “There are those familiar with—”

  I controlled the urge to bite, but the impulse rose up my throat to roughen my voice. “Don’t play games with me. You know what I mean. Why did you destroy our lives on Minas XII?”

  “So we could have this not so civilized conversation, Esen.”

  I didn’t look at Paul, who had lost so much. I couldn’t, given the way memories of Largas narrowed my vision to Skalet’s still-smiling face. “You didn’t have to send us running through the night,” I growled. “You didn’t have to ruin everything—”

  “To you, it was necessary, wasn’t it?” The interruption came from Paul, who dared lean forward to stare at Skalet. He looked curious, nothing more, to someone who didn’t know him better, who didn’t know the cost of such control. I wrinkled my snout in clear warning to Skalet.

  She merely dipped her head graciously at my Human, as if conceding him a victory. “Of course. Secrecy is essential. I could protect my movements from scrutiny, but yours? You exhibit a contempt for safety, Youngest, such that I’m amazed you’ve survived this long. That business with the Iftsen?” She pretended to shudder. “As well, you remain woefully predictable. It wasn’t difficult to arrange events that would encourage you to act in your own best interest for once.” I must have growled, drawing her eyes to me. “Surely you see the efficiency. In one stroke, you were freed from all ties you possessed outside this room and, as a consequence, you traveled secretly, here, to hide. A place where I could follow. As your Human wisely notes, everything was necessary for the safety of us all.” She regarded her wine. “Ah, but I forget, you have ambition. What do you care for my old notions of following rules and keeping safe?”

  Ambition? There was danger in the word, even if I had no idea what Skalet was talking about. Games—she’d always played them. “What ambition do you think I have?”

  The velvet voice could become as sharp as any knife. “Do you deny you’ve tried to turn yourself into one of them?” A wave toward Paul.

  I blinked.

  “Living among them I could understand,” Skalet continued more evenly. “This—bond—with a single Human I was willing to tolerate. He has proved useful and discreet; the species doesn’t live long anyway.” My growling became a snarl and she waited for me to subside, as if patience had been added to her character over the past years. “I admit, Youngest, I thought you were doing fairly well under the circumstances. You’ve even handled that fool Kearn without having to explain his corpse.” Her eyebrows, arched and artificial, came together in a frown. I could sense the “but” coming. Skalet had never been one to compliment without criticism.

  Sure enough. “But you have shocked me, Youngest.”

  “I shocked you?” This seemed a bit unreasonable, considering I wasn’t the one who’d decided to come back to life. “How?”

  “By breeding your Human,” she replied matter-of-factly. I did my utmost not to laugh—something Skalet had never taken well—as I wondered what Char Largas would have to say about this interpretation of her whirlwind courtship. She had, I recalled, found innumerable ways to keep a certain Lishcyn busy at the office.

  The impulse died as I lifted my ears and heard that Paul was barely breathing. A quick glance showed me his face had gone chalk white. Easy, I wished at him. Never show Skalet a way to your heart. “At first,” she was saying, “I couldn’t imagine what possessed you to complicate an already vulnerable identity by acquiring his offspring. Then, I understood.”

  “You did,” I said numbly.

  “Of course. You have never been subtle, no matter how I tried to educate you.” Paul should have laughed at this. Skalet fixed me with her cold, green eyes. “You’ve arranged that when this one dies, you’ll have more Humans of his genotype and your training. At the same time, you’ve set up a network of machines to gather information throughout this quadrant. Your ambition is as pathetic as it is obvious.”

  I felt time slipping back, as if I was trapped in Ersh’s kitchen by one of Skalet’s lessons on strategy. Figure it out for yourself, ’tween. There was no doubt in my mind: Skalet was still a lousy teacher. “I have no ambition, pathetic or otherwise,” I assured her, somehow finding the self-control not to shout. Beyond trying to repair what I could of our lives. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  “Do you think me senile, Youngest? It’s clear you have been attempting to create some obscene ephemeral Web, Esen-alit-Quar. I can only assume you’re trying to replace what you lost.” Skalet actually managed to look sympathetic. “A doomed, foolish ambition. I saw how this Human’s offspring abandoned you as soon as they were old enough. I watched you become so desperate you attempted alliances with any species that came near you, from Ganthor to those ridiculous Feneden. I realized I could no longer leave you to fend for yourself.”

  I hoped my relief didn’t show. If this wasn’t some trick—which was all too likely—then Skalet hadn’t found out about my alliance with Paul’s Group, or Rudy. She had, however, been closer to my every move than was even remotely comfortable. I spared an instant to worry about Luara and Tomas.

  Then wished I hadn’t, as the thought made me look again at Paul. His eyes flinched from mine, like something desperate.

  Had he lied to me? If Skalet hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t
begun pushing me back into her way of thinking, I might never have felt that jolt of dread. Now I couldn’t help remembering. Paul had said he wouldn’t see his children again in order to protect them from his past. Had it been to protect them from my future instead? Could he have believed I’d seen the twins as another set of Ragems to befriend, to risk with my secret after he was—after—

  “Stop this,” I ordered both Skalet and my imagination. “Unlike you, I took responsibility for the web-being who killed our sisters, and for any others who might come to this space. I made a life for myself. What would you have preferred I do? Hide in a hole for a hundred years, hoping for the occasional hiker to talk to himself so I could retain at least some familiarity with the local dialect? If Paul hadn’t left his own family, his own Web, for me, that’s very likely all I could have done.”

  “Laudable.”

  I snapped my teeth together over what I might have said, knowing I was the one with the vulnerable throat. Because of Paul. “Your approval means nothing to me,” I said evenly. “I presume you don’t seek mine.” I didn’t bother to reproach Skalet for abandoning me for fifty years, as Paul’s cousin Rudy had reproached him. Would Paul understand why? He’d always had less difficulty comprehending the ways of my species than I, his. Still, would he realize that for a web-being who’d lived millennia, as Skalet had, fifty years was the equivalent of a week apart?

  It was still enough time to accomplish very many things, especially if you were in a position of unassailable power such as Skalet enjoyed as S’kal-ru. I followed that thought, believing it was important. “How did you explain your failure to the Kraal? You’d cost them ships—lives.”

  “And how did you survive?” This from Paul, who’d been there when Skalet had asked for—and taken—most of my mass in order to fight our enemy.

  “How?” Skalet steepled her fingers, choosing to answer the Human—a choice implying she had reason to know it was safe to tell him secrets. It wouldn’t be trust. The hair over my spine, never flat since my arrival, stood straight up. “I left the excess mass as a decoy, deep inside a weapons’ room vault I knew would be difficult even for a web-being to penetrate quickly. Then I took a shuttle to rejoin Admiral Mocktap.”