Absence of Blade

by Caitlin Demaris McKenna

  Black claws the size of meat hooks rose over the rim of the tank as Pal scratched beneath his blue wattles in contemplation. After a moment he jerked his head toward the platform in a gesture for Gau to ascend. He settled himself on one of the block chairs. Pal shot up from the water on a burst of locomotor tentacles. Metal vibrated as he landed on the decking. The Baskar’s whole body was a solid tube of muscle coated in metallic blue skin, his lower extremities a writhing mass of thick tentacles. Smaller tendrils more suited for fine manipulation ringed his waist, below wiry shoulders and arms that each ended in two vicious bone hooks. Salty water dripped from the two skin-covered ear wedges that swept back from his blunt head, glistening on their triangular golden markings.

  Pal ascended his block chair with the typical rolling gait of the Baskar, gripping it with his tentacles like a tree rooting itself into ancient stone. He cocked his head, slitted black pupils narrowing.

  “What is it the dead require of the Directive?”

  Gau’s shoulders stiffened. “Is that the word from Olios 3, then?” he asked. “That I died?”

  “There is no word from Olios 3,” Pal said. “Not from your side. Our dispatches came from the Osk couriers that passed through Skraal system with the Fleet not long ago. They listed you as missing in action. Presumed dead.”

  Along with ten million other Osk. An easy mistake, and a fortunate one for him: no one would come looking for Gau if he was dead. His freedom of movement beyond the Front had just increased significantly.

  “That you’re here suggests you are not in a hurry to rejoin the Fleet,” Pal mused. “Or can’t, even though you have your own ship.” His yellow eyes were empty of curiosity; Pal was content to let Gau fill in the blanks or not, as he chose.

  “The Fleet is limping back to Oskaran in defeat,” said Gau, curling his lip. “I see no reason to join them. There’s nothing for me on our homeworld.” In truth, he barely remembered it: he’d been just over two years old when his parents had left to join Chii Ril. His real memories—his real life—started in that enclave on Aival, in Diego Two’s slums.

  Gau tapped fingers on his front leg, glancing away from the Baskar. Then he leaned forward. “I need a way of traveling within the Expansion Front undetected. False authentication codes for a Terran vessel.”

  The Baskar crossed his wiry arms over his chest and looked up at the mirrored ceiling. Waiting, no doubt, for a signal of assent from whoever listened in on their conversation. He must have gotten it, because he dropped his gaze back to Gau. “That could be done.” Pal tilted his head back, gazing down his muzzle with an appraising expression. “What do you offer the Directive in return?”

  Gau felt his fingers flexing in an urge to whirl an imaginary cloth off his offering. Not that he had anything visible to show the Baskar; information was rarely as impressive in its presentation as in its implications. Instead he let his mouth widen in the hint of a smile.

  “I have codes of my own,” said Gau. “Codes that could allow Directive trade ships safe passage through the ’stream gates to Olios 3.”

  Gau wasn’t sure how to interpret the twist in the Baskar’s scent—a metallic tinge that could have been excitement or disbelief—until Pal’s nostrils dilated in unmistakable interest.

  “You can disarm the mines the Fleet left in its wake?” Pal said at last.

  Gau chose his words carefully. “Not anything as permanent as that.” None but a trained Fleet engineer could disarm the mines the fleeing Osk forces had attached to the hyperspace gates leading out of Olios 3 space. Any craft that passed through the gates without the proper authentication codes would trigger the mines to detonate on a delayed timer, collapsing the hyperstream with the offending craft inside. Crushing it inside a pocket of hyperspace. Even knowing he had the proper codes as a registered ship of the Fleet, Gau’s skin had crawled at the thought as he’d passed through the gate to Skraal.

  The tactic was not a favored one for the simple reason that it could never be undone. ’Stream gates were precious: tricky to build and extremely time-consuming to link with ships traveling at sublight speeds. Many species had built their ’stream networks partially or entirely around the eons-old gates scattered around the galaxy, artifacts that had been in the universe longer than many main-sequence stars. One did not destroy ’stream gates offhandedly. Mining the gates had been a more than tactical gesture on the Fleet’s part—it was a signification that Olios 3 was lost to Oskaran, a seal of defeat more final than annihilating Za from orbit.

  He cleared his throat delicately. “I can’t disarm the mines, but I can make a copy of the authentication codes from my ship’s security subsystems. My ship is registered to the Fleet; that’s how I got to Skraal intact.”

  “Yes, you don’t appear to be an interdimensional smear of matter,” Pal said, lightly mocking—but his smile was more friendly than sardonic. “Travel capability between Skraal and Olios 3 could do much to expedite our business dealings. Communication time with Baskrii would be cut to under a year.” He frowned. “Of course, a Terran hyperwave call can cross the same light-years in minutes. Still, one must take what one is offered. It would be a great achievement for the Directive,” he added with a hopeful glance at the ceiling.

  Gau let his own smile become a grin. “A name-lengthening achievement,” he said. “Think of that, Paljarittihressenoormenashke: a new name segment for you and every Baskar above you in the Directive.” He let the silence play in the golden room for a moment. “So, do we have a deal?”

  Pal did not look at the ceiling for direction this time. “Not yet. We need to test your code, make sure it is compatible with our ships. Then we need to know it does what you say it can do.”

  It was the answer Gau had expected, but he still felt his smile wilt. “I won’t be leaving Skraal just yet, then.”

  Pal shook his head Terran-style. “No. But we will provide you with guest quarters and amenities in the meantime.” His grin this time was decidedly wry. “Anyway, you must be used to the rain from Diego Two, no?”

  There was a specific quality to the rain on Skraal, Gau decided, after an hour or so spent staring through the window of his guest room at the gray ceiling of clouds. The rain he remembered from his childhood pounded down in arching bow waves, chased him down slum alleys, pummeled his skin like the sky spitting on him. On Skraal, rain coalesced out of the air in misty veils, emerging from everywhere and nowhere. He imagined the molecules of water weaving themselves together in the air, creeping past the threshold of the microscopic atom by atom until they reached visibility all at once, a trick of the light revealing what had always been there. Little swarms of gray nothing that suddenly gained substance if he stared at them long enough.

  A greenish luminescence flashed through the walls on either side of the tall window. He shut his eyes against the irritating light and palmed the intercom on his chair.

  “Who is it?” Gau let his irritation trickle into his voice.

  “Pal.”

  “Come in.” Slithering off the crescent chair, he pulled his dark robe about him and padded to the guest suite entrance. He did have to admit the Directive provided well for their clients. The guest suite was in a small tower in a tighter curve of the spiraled arcade where the business cabal kept its front office. The height actually gave it a decent view of the sprawling expanse of Skraal-Teklan; he could even glimpse the public docking port on the northern edge where he’d stashed the Carnivore, though the ship was invisible at this distance.

  The suite itself was almost arrogantly sumptuous: the furniture was coated in self-cleaning smartsurfaces—something Gau had only heard of on Terran worlds—and could assume several ergonomic shapes at a user’s command. The tank (for of course the suite mostly catered to Baskar guests) was a hollowed-out cylinder of black ceramic with control dials for pumping in hot or cold water and a sluice trough molded directly into the floor around it. Ho
lofoil circuits in the walls allowed guests to order from the food console and select multiple forms of visual and audio entertainment.

  He had been content to stare at the rain. Now Gau assumed a pleasant expression and welcomed Pal into the suite. The Baskar gave him the briefest nod as he undulated inside. Skraal’s wan light glinted off the stiff metallic fabric of the skirt wrapped around his midsection, under the ring of manipulatory tendrils. He stopped near the window with his back to Gau.

  “The Directive’s technicians will have your code loaded into a test probe in a day-cycle,” he said without preamble. “As soon as that’s done, we’ll head out-system to test it. If it works, the Directive will install the authentication codes you seek into your ship.”

  “Excellent,” Gau replied. But I know all this.

  “Which means”—Pal swiveled to face him—“that I only have today to ask why you wish to return to Diego Two.”

  Metal flooded his mouth; he’d bitten his tongue. He swallowed tainted saliva and said, “I didn’t say I wanted to return.”

  Gau watched the Baskar’s blunt head tracking him as he walked to the window and stared at the saturated city beyond. A moment later, Pal’s reflection joined his in the glass alcove of the window.

  “You did not have to say it,” said Pal. “I’ve been a trader many years, long enough to have no small skill in intuiting my clients’ desires. You have unfinished business in Diego Two. One does not have to search the reef very far to guess you intend to return.”

  A slew of angry retorts sprang into his mind, but Gau pushed the thoughts down until he couldn’t hear them anymore. Despite his attempt at indifference, Gau’s curiosity had been piqued. He wanted to see what Pal would ask him; to see just how much of the game the Baskar had intuited.

  He dipped his torso, a sinuous Osk shrug. “Yes. Eventually.” He glanced sidelong at Pal. “What does it matter where I go after our deal is complete? You won’t care; I’ll be of no further use to the Directive by then.”

  Baskar were slow to anger; their general amiability was part of how they’d established such an extensive interstellar trade network. But now Pal’s eyes flashed yellow fire. He drew the muscled cone of his body up rigidly, arms akimbo and claws hooked into the belt loops above his metallic skirt. There was a visible tension in his locomotor tentacles as he rolled away from the window to the food console inset beside it, tapping instructions into the machine with jabs of his claws.

  Gau was startled to hear the gush and burble of liquid inside the console, and even more so a second later when Pal turned and said, “What will you have?”

  “What?”

  “To drink.” Pal almost ground his teeth on the words. “I am procuring refreshments. For my guest.”

  Still baffled, he muttered, “Water is fine. But—”

  Pal held up a claw to silence him. The food console chugged and sputtered, disgorging two metal bowls. Balancing the bowls in his claws with unexpected dexterity, Pal handed one off to Gau and cupped the other close to his snout, inhaling deeply. With a sigh of apparent satisfaction, the Baskar roiled his way over to the suite’s living area and sank locomotor tentacles into a bowl-shaped chair, lifting himself into its seat. Gau perched on the crescent chair he’d been using before, but kept his feet on the floor.

  Finally, Pal spoke. “The Directive does not use people. I don’t know what Lorsk told you, but we consider our business partners equal. You can dissolve your association with us whenever you wish.”

  “I know.” He stared into his water bowl. The Osk there looked smaller somehow in reflection, his eyes unable to meet Gau’s. As he lifted his gaze to Pal, he knew, shouldn’t say what he thought. But he heard the words coming out of his mouth anyway.

  “The Directive dissolved its association with the enclave quickly enough,” he said. “You were happy to trade them weapons for their supplies when it looked like Lorsk might actually win against the Church, but when it retaliated—then Chii Ril learned the worth of Baskar partnership.”

  This time Pal did not rouse to his former anger. Puffing a sigh through his nostrils, he tilted back his metal bowl and took a long draught. Gau caught sight of the liquid inside as he set the bowl down: cloudy white with slick floating things that could have been meat or fungus.

  “Lorsk Edrasshii is a capable faction leader but a poor analyst of Terran power structures,” Pal said at last. His next words were much quieter. “We all were. None on the non-Terran side of Diego Two knew what the Church would do once provoked.”

  The Baskar sighed, looking at the curls of rain winding down the window. “The Directive had to dissolve its association with Chii Ril; if D2 Civil Security had discovered we were giving aid to the enclave, in the best case scenario it would have shut us down and deported every Baskar in the city.”

  Gau took a sip of the water. The cool wetness felt like rain running down his throat. “I don’t blame the Directive for turning their backs on Chii Ril.”

  “But you can’t turn your back on them, is that it?” Pal’s yellow eyes searched him like a scanner’s beam, but Gau kept his face impassive, without even the micro-expressions that normally conveyed emotion. Let the Baskar see what he wanted to see in it.

  When Gau said nothing, Pal went on. “It might be hard to hear this, but there is nothing you can do for Chii Ril. They’re safe in hiding, those that are left. You risk jeopardizing that safety if you return.”

  Well, we wouldn’t want that, he thought, the words biting in his own head. Oskaran forbid anything jeopardize Lorsk’s precious mission. He imagined the old faction leader still fighting his renegade—now underground—war, even as his friends died around him and his own vision of their objective grew dim and clouded. Lorsk would not stop until he fell dead of old age or someone put a blade through him.

  Gau had sworn that person would be him. It might take years—it would certainly take allies, and resources, and a plan. He had only the last: it had started forming in his head months ago, as he’d stood over the classified file in Shanazkowitz’s office. He would have to play for everything else. Then again, he’d had a lot of practice in that.

  “If I promise not to return to Diego Two, will you stop asking me about it?” asked Gau. He swirled the water in his bowl, watched his reflection dissolve into ripples.

  “No. Any such promise is worth less than coral dust.”

  Astonished at the Baskar’s bluntness, Gau raised his eyes in time to see Pal shake his head—wearily, it seemed. “I can’t dissuade you if you are determined to return. And it’s not my place to do so. As I said, you are our free associate. But I will say this. I’ve met people like you before.”

  Gau’s mane prickled; he clenched his hands around the bowl as a sudden anger seized him. With an effort, he kept his voice level. “You barely knew who I was back then.” And you don’t know me at all now, he wanted to add—but the prospect of inviting the Baskar’s continued scrutiny was enough for him to hold his silence.

  But Pal didn’t appear to be deterred. “It’s true, I had many couriers back then—and more than a few who knew their way around my product. But you did make an impression on me.” He swirled the last of his drink around in the bowl, drained it, and wiped the whitish dregs from his lips with a claw.

  Gau decided to humor him. “All right. If you’ve met people like me,” he said, “then tell me what kind of person I am.”

  For a minute or so Pal said nothing; his claws tapped the lacquered table beside his seat. “One who has molded his entire existence around survival.” The searchlights of his eyes pinned Gau in place. “Diego Two has produced more than its share of such people, in the slums and shadowmarkets. People so focused on preserving their lives that they never stop to consider what they want those lives to be.

  “The Gray Wars are over. As painful as that defeat must be to accept, perhaps in time you will see the same opportun
ity in it as I do.” He sighed, a burbling, almost philosophical sound. “You have the chance to make your life, now.”

  Gau met the pressure of those yellow eyes, matching his gaze with the Baskar’s. “Is that advice?” he asked.

  “If you want it to be.” Rain pattered the window. After the silence had lingered long enough to be almost a second guest, Pal slithered out of his bucket seat, scooped up his empty bowl, and placed it on the white smartsurface of a nearby pedestal. Gau watched the smart material pucker, seeming to grow liquid as it sucked the bowl into its substance so the circuits in the room could wash, disinfect, and restock the bowl behind its food console.

  “You could work for the Directive,” said Pal.

  Gau snorted, looked away.

  “I mean it,” said Pal. He indicated the guest suite with a wave. “We’ve made a good life here. A free life. Not like in Diego Two. The Terrans never allowed us to expand beyond the shadowmarkets there—the lines of business they felt beneath them—but here, the Directive runs more than the underground economy. You could be a part of that.”

  “Doing what? Purity-testing your endorphin for you? Making sure your customers get a nice clean high?” The anger in his voice surprised Gau. The side of his neck itched; he brought a hand beneath his mane and felt the bumps of the old injection sites, barely there under his fingers.

  The Baskar had the courtesy to look embarrassed, his scaly lips pulling taut. “Of course not,” he said at last. “I heard what happened. After Chii Ril’s survivors went to ground our market supply began to dry up. I never gave the order to start cutting it, but some of our distributors . . .” Pal slashed the air with a claw, scowling tightly. “It doesn’t matter. That life is behind you now. You should put Diego Two behind you as well.”

  Gau sighed his disappointment. He’d been so sure the Baskar understood; that he saw, if not the intricate play of moves Gau unfolded before him, at least the shape of the larger game. He could never put that life behind him as long as Diego Two still existed.