The Kindly Ones

by Melissa Scott

  Then, as suddenly as they'd arrived, the group vanished. The repeated roar of flyers' lift-offs woke me well before the usual hour, and when I went down to the hall for breakfast, a quarter of the chairs were empty. The Tower was ominously silent for the rest of the day, and even the Matriarch seemed distracted, waiting for whatever was going to happen. I did my best to concentrate on my own work, reviewing the various mediums' monthly reports on the ghosts under their charge, but the conference room we were using had a window, and my eyes were drawn to it again and again, searching for the flyers.

  The first flyers did not return until after dinner that clock-evening. I heard them from my room, and put aside my glass of esco—almost the last of my last bottle—to cross to the window and look out. Orestes was heading toward Sunset, the pinpoint sun dropping toward the horizon, lightening the dark sky. Against that brilliance, another light—a flyer's running lights—flashed palely, then a second and a third. The leading ship tilted and moved out of sight, heading for the field behind the Tower. The others followed, but I was no longer watching. I turned instead to my keyboard to type in the command to bring up the Tower's general information line. Instead of the usual half-screen heading, I got a curt error message: everyone else was trying to get through, too. I hesitated for an instant. Should I go down to the hall, or to the working levels, and see what was going on? Or should I wait here, where I could be summoned if needed? Without making a conscious decision, I stepped to my door and opened it, leaning out into the dimly lit hall.

  Other off-world employees were milling around in the shadows, and the few Halex who shared the floor with us looked just as confused. I didn't want to get too far from my keyboard, and hesitated again. Then I thought I saw a familiar face among the crowd, and shouted to him.

  "Corol! What's happening, have you heard?"

  At my call, the greying driver detached himself from the others, and came to join me. "They've made a raid, Medium, but I don't know more than that."

  It was hardly a surprise, but the pit of my stomach contracted. More dead, surely—and true-dead, too, not just ghosts. . . . "Where?" I asked, involuntarily, and Corol shrugged.

  "I told you, I don't know," he said, but he was grinning.

  "There's going to be an announcement on the 'net in an hour," someone shouted from a doorway.

  "I'll have to wait to see if I'm needed," I said, half to myself. If the raid had been successful—and surely we'd've heard if it hadn't been—Herself wouldn't need my services at once, though she might need me later if there was any question of anyone's behavior being mortal. It was obviously my duty to wait by my machines until I was sent for—but I couldn't face the prospect of waiting alone. "An hour?" I said aloud. "Come in and wait with me, Corol, we'll split a pot of coffee."

  Corol gave me a glance full of amused understanding. "Thank you, Medium, I'll do that."

  We retreated to my rooms, though I kicked the chock that would hold the door open about a hand's-breadth into place. The noise in the hall was already dying down as people realized that no news was immediately forthcoming. I buzzed the kitchens and asked them to send up a full coffee service—one of the three things the kitchen would make at any hour—and set the dumbwaiter to chime when the tray arrived. When I turned back to the room, Corol was standing at the window, staring out toward the field.

  "More flyers coming in," he said, without turning. "Two, three of them."

  "I saw three land earlier," I said. That meant at least six ships, I thought, and more could easily have landed while we were talking in the hall. How many people had been involved in this raid, anyway? Six flyers was a major strike force—certainly a lot bigger than anything the Brandr or the Fyfe had set against us.

  As if he'd read my thoughts, Corol said, "Two of the ones I saw were light jobs, two-seaters."

  So it wasn't a ground attack, I thought. A raid on the Fyfe herds, maybe? Aloud, I said, "I wouldn't think they'd be much use in a raid."

  "That depends," Corol said, and turned away from the window. His face was very thoughtful all of a sudden, and I wondered what he'd seen that had worried him. Before I could ask, however, the chime sounded, and I turned to take the service from the open dumbwaiter.

  "Do you mind if I turn on your 'net, Medium?" Corol continued.

  I shook my head, trying to balance the coffee with one hand while sweeping papers aside to make room for the tray on the room's low center table. By the time I had things arranged properly, Corol had turned away from the screen again, shaking his head.

  "Nothing yet."

  I looked anyway. The screen showed only a test pattern and the words "please wait" superimposed over it. "They said an hour?" I asked.

  "So Embla said." Before Corol could say anything more, there was a knock at the door.

  "Who is it?" I called, a little impatiently.

  "Us, Dario and Slade. Can we come in?"

  "Sure."

  The Patroclans pushed their way in, stepping awkwardly over the chock. I hadn't seen them, except in passing, for some weeks, and I was startled by the sudden wariness in their mobile faces. To hide my own surprise, I offered them coffee, glad I'd ordered a full service.

  Yan shook his head, grimacing. Orteja said, "Trey, what's going on? They're saying that a bunch of Halex kids sank a Brandr fishing fleet."

  "What?" I said, in spite of myself, and Corol snapped, "Saying where?"

  "Everywhere," Yan answered.

  "I hadn't heard even that much," I said. Looking at their worried faces, I put aside my own desire for information and said firmly, "Sit down, get yourselves some coffee. We won't hear anything reliable until the official announcement."

  Yan made another face, but settled himself in the nearest chair, then leaned forward stiffly to pour two cups of the thick coffee. Orteja lowered himself to the floor at his partner's feet.

  "Sank a fishing fleet," Corol said thoughtfully. "That would explain the little flyers, at least, for strafing."

  "What a mess," Orteja murmured, and Yan nodded.

  Corol gave them an amused glance, and lifted an eyebrow at me, as though inviting me to share in the joke. I pretended not to see.

  "Do you think it's likely, Corol?" I asked.

  The driver shrugged. "It's possible. It'd make sense—and what a revenge it would be. But I don't know any more than you do, Medium."

  The rest of the hour passed with excruciating slowness. At last, however, I glanced at the time display I had called onto the main console screen, to see the test pattern fading into the pale blue walls of the broadcast chamber. I fumbled hastily for the keyboard, cancelling the time display, and heard Corol make a small noise of satisfaction. The Patroclans set their cups aside almost in unison, fixing their attention on the screen.

  The picture took shape slowly—all the Tower's facilities were nearly a decade out of date, by Urban standards—the Matriarch staring sternly into the camera lens. She looked better than she had over the previous days, the grim lines eased from around her mouth, and I wondered for a split second, irrationally, if there'd been no raid at all. As soon as that thought took shape, I knew it was foolish—and then Herself began to speak.

  "Kinsmen, I bring you good news, after the difficulties of the past weeks. A group of our young people, the kindred of my grandson's generation, led by Jaben Ingvarr, have successfully raided the Brandr fleet in the Grand Shallows. Not only was their primary objective, the disruption of the schools of leva now running in the Shallows, achieved completely, but nearly a dozen fishing boats were capsized or otherwise damaged. I ask you to join with me in saluting these members of our Kinship."

  There was more, but I wasn't really listening. The Grand Shallows lay to the east of the Bight, an immense bay silted by deposits from the Ostlaer River to the south, and the Tarentaese to the north. Most of Orestes' commercial fishing was done there, in sheltered water, rather than in the open sea, and the Brandr Kinship monopolized that trade. Once, on a flight from Destiny to Ma
delgar, I had seen the fleet in action, following a run of boi-boi. The blunt-nosed, broad-beamed little ships had seemed very small from the air, very fragile. I remembered, too, the Brandr pilot talking about the risks the fishermen ran—boi-boi were big fish, predators hunted with harpoon, a rare and dangerous catch. People always died during a boi-boi chase, he had said. Someone would be dragged overboard, and the thermal suits only gave you five minutes' grace before you died of the cold. Herself had bragged of capsized ships. I wondered how many of their crews had died in the frigid water, and shivered in spite of myself.

  "Isn't leva the staple food in the Brandr Mandate?" Orteja asked. Corol grinned wolfishly. "It is that."

  "It's also a staple of the Destiny population," I said, rather more sharply than I'd intended. "This won't help the Necropolis at all."'

  Corol shrugged that off, still grinning. "Oh, we can tighten our belts quite a bit without hurting, Medium. Brandr'll starve before we do."

  I wasn't entirely sure about that—the ghosts were still partly the responsibility of their original Families, and would not starve, but the poorer para'anin, deliberately kinless, were another matter; however, looking at the driver's triumphant face, I didn't feel like arguing the question. Maybe I should've obeyed my first impulse, I thought—encouraged Rohin to talk to me about his plans. Maybe I could've stopped this, or diverted it into other channels. But it hadn't been Rohin's plan, I told myself. I would only have made things difficult, maybe laid him open to a charge of cowardice. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that I could've done something.

  "Will this upset the schooling pattern?" That was Yan, frowing over a new problem.

  "Of the fish?" I asked, and he nodded. "Probably. They're surprisingly vulnerable to environmental disturbances. The earthquakes two years ago disturbed the runs for a whole year, according to the records."

  "I hope it does," Corol said, a little impatiently. "God almighty, we're at feud." He looked directly at me. "Will you be at the celebration, Medium?"

  Celebration? I thought. I hadn't heard the announcement, but of course there'd be one. I couldn't muster much enthusiasm for the idea, and shook my head. "I don't think it would be appropriate," I improvised, "just in case there're mortal questions later."

  Corol nodded, apparently appeased. "I doubt there will be, Medium, but I see your point. You don't mind if I take myself off, do you?"

  "Not at all," I said.

  "Thank you for your hospitality," the driver said, punctiliously, and let himself out. One of the Patroclans sighed audibly.

  "More coffee?" I said.

  "No, thank you," Yan answered, and Orteja said, with sudden decision, "Trey, we've just about completed our survey. Would you make arrangements for us to return to Patroclus?"

  "Kassan and Cho were hired to do a complete analysis of the mining district," I said. "That's not done, is it?"

  "The survey work is," Orteja said.

  "The rest is computer work—analysis and simulations," Yan added. "That's better done on our home equipment anyway. There's nothing here with the capacity to do it."

  That was certainly true, but I waited anyway.

  "Besides," Orteja went on, "there's nothing in our contract that says we have to stay during a feud."

  "It's a state of war," Yan said, and added, with the air of someone playing a winning card, "union rules."

  Most unions did absolve their members from taking sides in planetary conflicts outside the Urban sphere. I bit back my first angry remark, recognizing the jealousy that fueled it, and said, "You're within your rights, of course. I'll speak to Herself in the morning."

  "Thank you, Trey," Orteja said, and Yan echoed him.

  The Matriarch accepted the Patroclans' imminent departure more calmly than I had expected, even going so far as to bestow guest-gifts. I made the arrangements as they had requested, and managed to find them a berth on a woolship leaving in eight days for Leda. From there, they would have no trouble finding a ship for Patroclus, and I found myself envying them a little. After all, they were walking away from the whole complicated situation—they were able to walk away from it, from the code, from the feud, from everything—while I was bound both by contract and by my obligation as Mediator to remain. But there was work to be done, and the feeling soon passed.

  We had all expected some sort of retaliation for the raid on the fleet, and Herself ordered special patrols for all the Kinship's outlying holdings, but days passed, and nothing happened. There were other things to do, especially in Destiny, but also in outlying areas, where some arrangement had to be made to warn the dead in case of further raids. I threw myself into that work, and became so absorbed in it that I barely noticed the quiet. I wouldn't've thought that much of it if I had noticed, but the Halex did, and the Tower subsided into a nervous quiet.

  Two calendar-days after the Patroclans' departure, Herself sent for me. I was up in the greenhouse at the top of the Tower, playing hookey from my work to indulge in its warmth and conversation with one of the gardeners. She was a woman who'd been off-world and travelled quite a bit before coming home to Orestes and her Kinship's Tower; we had places in common, and I was desperate for reminders of the Conglomerate as a whole. I sat on a painted bench beneath a flowering tree, listening to her talk about the various herbs that filled the raised beds to either side. Some—the majority, I think —were native to Orestes; the rest she and the other gardeners had either brought home from their travels, or had shipped to the planet from their original worlds. One or two of the flowers I recognized as common on the Urban worlds, and was surprised they'd grow here.

  "Well, you have to plant them separately," Maxa said, "and feed and light them according to the original worlds. But as long as you pay attention, you can make them thrive." She pushed herself rather stiffly to her feet, brushing absently at the front of her heavy apron, and glanced over her shoulder. "I think business's caught up with you, Medium."

  I looked where she pointed. A teenaged boy, one of the Tower runners, was standing uncertainly beside the kiosk that covered the stairhead and kept the heat from escaping. The brief illusion shattered, and I raised a hand to beckon to him, suddenly aware of the steam-fogged glass walls, and the Dark beyond them. Out of the corner of one eye, I could see Agamemnon's waning crescent.

  The boy came over to us, breathing heavily. He was new to Tower service, probably relocated because of the feuds. His face bore the Halex tattoo, and his hair was twisted into an untidy topknot: from one of the outlying areas, I guessed, and wondered what the rest of his family was doing.

  "I beg your pardon, Medium, if I've disturbed you, but Herself would like to see you right away."

  Despite the boy's politeness, it was a summons that allowed no argument. I nodded, and said to Maxa, "I'd better go. Thanks for your company."

  "My pleasure," the gardener answered, smiling. "Come in the clock-afternoon, next time, and share my break."

  "I'll do that," I answered, and followed the boy down the long stairs into the body of the Tower. It seemed very cold there, after the warmth of the greenhouse. I shivered, pulling on the overtunic I'd discarded, and wished for a heavier wrap.

  Herself was waiting in her private office, where she conducted most of the Kinship's minor business. It was a small room, furnished with an inexpensive executive's console and some heavy, well-padded chairs. Usually, she worked there alone, or with the secretary Lenor to help her; today the little room was crowded, and they'd had to bring in extra chairs from the conference room next door. I looked around once. Magan was there, and Lenor, of course, but also the Elder Tirey Ingvarr and a woman who looked familiar but whose name I could not immediately remember.

  "You took your time getting here," Herself snapped as we entered.

  The boy flushed, stammered something, and I said, "I'm sorry, ama, I wasn't in my office." I didn't offer any further apology, and for a moment I thought she'd pursue the matter, but then she snorted and looked away.

  "All
right, Aude, you may go."

  The boy's flush deepened, and he backed from the room, closing the door tightly behind him.

  "Well, Medium," Herself said. "We have a new problem, one you will have to help us with. Sit down."

  "Oh?" I sat. There was no need, on Orestes, to assure the Matriarch of my cooperation: that had already been guaranteed, by contract and code alike.

  "You remember my kinswoman Coronis," Herself continued.

  I nodded, to hide the start of surprise. Of course, that was the woman sitting beside Magan, her hands folded so tightly in her lap—Coronis, who'd married Eyre Brandr. "I do, ama."

  "She has brought us news." The Matriarch was silent for a long moment, so long that Coronis looked up abruptly.

  "Shall I tell it, ama?" The words were a challenge, but her thin hands moved restlessly for a moment before the fingers closed again around each other.

  Herself frowned. "No." She fixed her eyes on me. "Medium, it has come to our knowledge—our certain knowledge—that the Brandr Kinship is going off-world for weapons, and maybe for men to use them. We feel we must do the same."

  I shifted uneasily in my chair. Before I could say anything, Coronis said, low-voiced, "It's true, I swear it. Eyre and I both heard, Eyre confirmed it." She looked quickly at the Matriarch. "You understand my situation, ama. Eyre's dead, by law, and I've kept the code myself, so I could tell you what's happened, but not any longer. I've done my duty, and now I want the money to go off-world, to get out of this—place."

  My God, poor Coronis, I thought. To have come all that way with her husband a ghost beside her. . . . I heard Tirey give a little offended gasp, but Magan leaned across to touch Coronis's shoulder lightly. "It seems only right, Mother," he said.