by Jo Clayton
Ilaцrn stilled his hands, listened. A buzzing… no… a whine… both… a strange sound, not one he’d heard before. “Sioll Imuл, what is that? Can you see it?”
*I see a strange thing, sioll Ilaцrn. It is dark and hard like a nagal the size of a rebou, but it flies without wings. And very fast. I think we should leave here, sioll. Quickly. *
The Eolt expanded and began xe’s rise, searching the tiers for a layer that would blow xe quickly away. Ilaцrn slung the harp’s carry strap over his shoulder and moved into the shadow under the trees. Curiosity kept him close, though. He wanted to see this strange thing for himself. Besides, his joints were stiff from sitting and he was reluctant to go running off if there was no need.
Eolt Imuл’s membranes had also grown stiff with age and xe’s climb was labored and slow. Ilaцrn watched and winced with his sioll. We are old, he thought. Could be we should return to the Sleeping Ground. He sighed. We’ll have to talk when this thing has passed.
The strange nagal whipped past Imuл, circled back. It was a wagon that rode air instead of wheels and there was glass across the front. He saw figures behind that glass, misshapen, trollish figures, and he thought he heard them laugh as the wash of their airwagon sent Eolt Imuл tumbling, though that was probably a trick of his mind. The airwagon turned again, a spear of light sprang from beneath it. The light touched Imuл and xe was a column of fire flaring to meet the sun…
Ilaцrn woke sweating and shaking. He swung his feet over the edge of the cot and sat with his hands dangling between his knees. Light from the security beams atop the garden wall filtered through the c’hau cloth curtains pulled across the window and the cracks in the wall where the green boards had split and pulled apart.
He was exhausted, but he wasn’t going to sleep any more, not tonight. If he tried, the dream would replay. Over and over. He should have died when Imuл burned, but the mesuch caught him before he had a chance to follow his sioll. Nor could he escape into madness, the Chave measured his blood, all his fluids, and played their games with his flesh. No madness for him. He was the Ykkuval Hunnar’s pet native, his source for truth and trouble.
They put a crown on his head and tore his language from him, force-fed him theirs, then they changed crowns and stole his memories.
He thrust his hand in his mouth and bit down hard as he thought of those sessions with the probe. The pain, the helplessness… the pleasure… the horrible pleasure that brought a spending that went on and on until he was a sack of skin that held only the ashes of orgasm.
It was another chain on him, and Ykkuval Hunnar ni Jilet soyad Kroumak held the free end. These days when he went under the probe, it was usually just the two of them there-no techs, no guards, just them. A kind of sex though neither touched the other nor spoke of what was happening.
Ilaцrn rose with painful stiffness, his knees complaining, his stomach knotting, acid in his mouth. He pulled on his shirt; it was long enough to cover him so he didn’t bother with pants. He lifted the hook from its eye, pushed the door open, and went out.
The sygyas were flying, tiny points of pulsing white light darting from the stream to the flowering trees. Squatting by the door, he watched them, their random patterns-soothing, restful. He hummed, no sound, just a vibration of the throat, as his mind spun a melody from the intervals. His fingers twitched, responding to the cues; he’d not made music with his hands since Imuл burned, but two centuries was a long habit to break.
How much time passed he was never sure, but sometime after he’d left his room, Hunnar came from the Keep and trotted across the garden, sliding into the bush plantings along the high stone wall his iron slaves had built for him. Ilaцrn drew his hand across his eyes, frowning at the place where the Chav had vanished.
He’d never tried holding back under the probe, he’d never tried answering the letter of the question and betraying the spirit. He’d been afraid to try because if that failed, there was nothing left. He started shaking; his eyes blurred as tears gathered in them, spilled over, and dripped down his face. If he discovered too much that he wasn’t supposed to know, Hunnar would have him killed; the terror laid into his mind told him to go inside, pull the blankets over his head and forget what he’d seen. And yet…
He forced himself to his feet.
Blood roaring in his ears, his legs shaking so badly he could only shuffle, he edged away from the work-shed and pushed through the bushes until his hand was flat against the stones. Despite his struggle with his body, he moved silently through the darkness until he came to an opening where he knew there’d been solid stone yesterday. He slipped through, moved along the wall in the pool of shadow at the base, and stopped when he reached a corner in the eight-sided Kushayt wall and heard a low whistle just ahead.
He flattened himself on the ground and crawled forward to peer around the corner.
The watchtower was lit, the landing area bright with light tubes. The brightness dazzled his eyes; he rubbed at them and when they cleared, saw a flier down on the white porcelain surface of the pad, a strange flier, delicate and angular, poised like an angi on a pebble. He crawled a bit closer, keeping behind some bushy stinkweeds that had grown up since the wall was finished.
Unlike the heavy dark things the Chave flew, this airwagon was a two seater that looked fast as thought even when it sat without moving. A cloaked form swung down from it as Ilaцrn watched, trotted to a jag in the Kushayt wall where the shadow was conveniently dense, starting to talk when he came close enough to see Hunnar waiting. “… pay me more, I was as near getting nipped this time… or give me a window.”
“Kirg! You take me for a fool? Nothing written, nothing in the air. That was the bargain. You want Koraka humiliated and yourself off this world, you play the game my way.”
Hunnar and his visitor kept their voices low, but the light breeze blowing into Ilaцrn’s face carried their words farther than they knew. The visitor pushed back the cowl to his cloak as he moved into the shadow, the movement hasty, abrupt, echoing the irritation in his high, light voice. His voice had youth in it, petulance and a lilt to the words that Ilaцrn did not recognize. He was taller and wispier than a Chav, round ears set high on a furry head, a short sleek pelt like one of the stambs that swam in the Bakuhl Sea.
Has to be one of the mesuch on Banikoлh. Yaraka. A spy! Bribed to work against his own. Darin shuddered, his eyes blurring, blood pounding in his ears-dangerous knowledge, death in it. Or worse…
When he could see and hear again, he found himself facedown in the dirt, one hand dug knuckle-deep into the dry earth, the other cramped around the stem of a bush, the stink of its crushed membrane nauseating. He freed his hands, moving so cautiously his arms were shaking and his knees on fire by the time he’d gotten himself together again.
The spy was still talking.
“… the bitch from University has rolled him over like he was some ‘k’trin gynnis with his tongue out. Turned the stinking little brats loose without so much as a stick laid across their backsides. She and her lot are out in the local village sucking up to the locals, getting a house set up. He’s sent ‘bots out to set locks and work security like he doesn’t care a scorp about expense. That harp player she has along, she’s really got to the jellies, give the bitch that. You let those Xenos keep working and no way you’re going to pull hoeh Dexios loose.”
Hunnar made an impatient sound deep in his throat; Ilaцrn could imagine the inner lids corning down and his eyes starting to shine with anger.
“Let it go. That isn’t what I’m paying you for. Do you have the enclave plans and the lockwords?”
“On this flake.” The spy’s voice was muffled. Ilaцrn thought he sounded disappointed, almost cheated-as if he’d expected more from Hunnar… appreciation, some sense of shared anger… something like that.
Hunnar had heard it, too; his voice turned mellow, his impatience vanished. “Good work. We’ll deal with the Xenos when the time’s right. I tell you what. We’ll make things
safer for you. One of my agents brought back some locals from near your place. One’s a young woman. Juicy young thing, tender and pliant; you might find she has her attractions and she’ll be willing enough once we’ve finished with her. Even if she doesn’t suit you as playmate-you wouldn’t be the first to have a taste for local beasts-you can use her as a drop. Leave your reports, pick up the registered receipts of the cash deposits on Helvetia. Which you will, of course, check over and burn immediately. You know what we want.”
“Yes. Shipments, the Goлs’ deployment plans, reports from the University team, notations as to their movements. How long will this drag out?”
“We have to be sure to cut all links to the outside and erase the team; that takes some maneuvering, but I’d say we’ll have you a hero before the year’s out.” Hunnar’s voice went honey sweet again. “Look at this.”
The spy took a small thing like a game chip, looked down at it, and sucked in his breath. “This is…”
“A bonus. Yours if you agree to one more small thing. It has its dangers, but I’m sure you’re clever enough you can contrive to lay suspicion on someone else.”
The mesuch’s hand closed round the chip. Ilaцrn could almost smell the greed and spite in the creature.
Hunnar held out another small dark object. “There’s a virus on this. If you can get it introduced into the com system, it will shut it down and your enclave with be completely isolated. When our arrangements are complete, we’ll arrange a story of your fortunate escape from a vicious native attack and see that a free trader picks you up. You’ll be a very rich man and there’ll be no suspicion.”
“Good.” The spy turned his head. Ilaцrn could see the flow of light over the golden fur, the darkness of the fur mask over the mesuch’s eyes. “That tower, the guard. You’re sure of him?”
“Of course. Goлs Koraka may have found cracks in my security as we have in his, but Pismek in the Tower is my man to the bottom of his warty soul.”
The spy pulled the cloak’s cowl up over his head and ran for the flier.
Hunnar stepped out of the shadow and stood watching it dart away with the whippiness its shape had promised. “What a cinser. Not enough there to be worth wringing his neck,” he said, contempt icing the words. “Taner bless all younger sons with greedy fists and empty heads.”
3
Tech Girs snorted, slapped at a sensor. “Cinsing ‘bats. If there’s a way to chich up, they’ll find it.” He hunched over his board, eyes on the readouts, fingers busy on the touch plaques.
Yadak leaned back in his chair, patted a yawn. “Bet it’s number five. What’d it get up to this time?”
The younger tech finished what he was doing, watched a moment, then said, “Ol’ five’s scratching along like it knew what it’s for. It’s nine this time. Messy eater and it’s in a finicky fold area, chunk got past the shields, don’t ask me how, sent the pichin son of a poxed deve straight at seven. Hoo, that’d been a thing to watch, hadn’t I caught it, each of ‘m trying to chew up the other.”
“Ayyunh. And t’ Ykkuval he’d take cost out your hide the next fifty years.”
“Mp. Shift’s nearly up. You hear what Nemlen said?”
“About spotting that herd of jellies?”
“That’s it. Want to jog over on the way back and do some jelly burns?”
“Why not. Nothing else to do in this cinsing hole.”
Girs swung down from the cabin of the tracker, stretched, and strolled toward the patch of pulverized scree they used for a pad as the flier from base settled with a quickly corrected sideways lurch. His replacement punched the door open, swung his feet out, and jumped down. Rubbing his fist against his coverall and swearing at sticking-locks and cranky lifters, he trudged toward Girs.
“M’rab, Choban. How’s a guy?”
“M’rr, Girs. You wanna watch this junkheap, think there’s a hairline in one of the lifters.”
“Ayyunh? Thought it was you hung over so bad you can’t see straight.” He wrinkled an eyeridge. “You on your lonesome?”
“Nah. Herm’s in there working up nerve to move his head. He won himself some bonus time in Farkli’s backroom and he spent it hard.” He shrugged, started walking for the tracker, boots crunching on the gravel. “Me, I’d leave him lay, he has to move, he’s gonna be wanting to kill something.” He slapped at one of the small black flies that kept trying to bite them. “Kirg! I hate these things. Be glad when I earn enough time-tickets to transfer to a decent world with cities on it. Any problems?”
“I set a watchlink on nine. Went off program about an hour ago, charged number seven like a twi-horn in must. I reconfigured, but it’s only a patch, not a fix.”
“And five?”
“Chewing away, not a glitch in eight solid hours. Hear any more about those cinsing Yarks?”
“Rumor says Ykkuval’s spy come over last night. Ol’ Pismek was in tower like always when there’s something going the Big Man he don’t want stripped to heartstone.”
“Chich! Might’s well be blind in both eyes and deaf besides for all the talking Fisk does. So?”
“I heard that them from University got here, dossed down with a bunch of locals, and the Big Man, he’s having fits at the thought. Buzz is, you volunteer for agitation over there, you can pick up extra time in s’rag, and if you manage some real hurt to the fuzz-heads, maybe even a bonus time-ticket or two. Ta’ma’, it’s only buzz, I believe it when I see it posted and certified.”
“Hoy, Chob, you pilling a single?” Yadak tossed his yamsac from the door of the sleeping cabin at the back end of the tracker, followed it with Girs’. “This lot of mudworms will keep you crazy.”
“Nah. Herm’s along. He just not moving well right now.”
“His luck’s still running with the vagnag, hunh?”
“Ayyunh.” Choban grinned, his eyes almost vanishing in a web of wrinkles. “Zorl was the big loser this time. He was really pissed.”
“Ta’ma’, Chob, alarms are set, any problems you get bonged. Girs, got a back on you? Flip you for who rousts Herm.”
4
As they flew across the rolling savannah, Girs listened to the uncertain whine from the lifters and fiddled with the coaster pad, trying to get a better balance. After half an hour of it, he said, “Don’t know, Yad. Maybe we should go straight back. ‘S a light world but I never much liked walking.”
Yadak slapped his arm. “Naymind, look there, there’s a clutch of ‘em. Kick in high, it’s not big enough jag to worry about.”
* * *
“Look at ‘em scatter. Take it right through the middle, Giro.” Yadak triggered the beam, sent it cutting through a large lumbering jelly, shouted as it burned. “Two miles if it’s an inch. Look at that ‘un, going down ‘stead of up. Trying to be sly, hunh ol’ havva? Gotcha. What you think those things there on the ground are? Those brown lumps, one of ‘em’s burning, of jelly fell on it. Hoosh, what a stink. M’ra, you feel that? Go through that smoke again, Giro. Haaaggghhh, that’s good, you feel that, that’s goo’ tha’ ssss goooo…”
5
The Ykkuval looked down at the charred bits that had been two of his techs, then at his chief of security, the Memur Tryben who was also one of his cousins, and at the two medics hovering behind him. “Ta’ma’, what am I supposed tell their families?”
Tryben grunted. “Not the truth, that’s sagg. I’ll give you the witness’ tale later; for now, Med First Muhaseb, tell him what you found.”
Hunnar’s eyeridges wrinkled, the inner lids slid forward until they were just visible.
His shoulders coming up in submission, Med Muhaseb fixed his eyes on the floor and spoke to the tiles in front of Hunnar’s feet. “We found certain… ahhh certain residues in the bodies of both techs. To put an ordinary name on it, we suspect they were drugging themselves with something local. It’s not a substance on the List, that’s why I say local.” His shoulders hunched higher and he began choosing his words with extreme care. “
It is… ahhh… difficult to determine the precise effects of the substance… we’re only beginning to test it… but I would hazard a guess that it’s both powerful and dangerous. The locals we’ve… ahhh… studied are not greatly divergent from the general run of Cousins and there are sufficient… ahhh… resonances with Chav… ahhh… physiology to… ahhh… make it reasonably certain that the locals will be aware of such a substance and its effects.” He stopped talking but kept his eyes fixed on the floor.
Hunnar flexed his fingers, retracted his claws. “Right. Get on with your analysis. I don’t expect miracles, we’re not equipped for those, but I want a report on my desk by the end of the month, you hear me?”
“We hear, Ykkuval.”
Memur Tryben slid a flake into the player but didn’t touch the sensor. “Fayl Skambil-he’s a good, reliable tech who knows how to keep his mouth shut. He belongs to a minor house, one of our affiliates, so he knows where his loyalties lie. Skambil was out scouting the foothills for locals, spotting the infestations so we can shift them once the factories are in place. Doing his own piloting, marking the grid and flaking the settlements.”
Hunnar clicked a claw on the desktop; but Tryben didn’t hurry himself. He was a methodical Chav; it didn’t matter what his listener knew, he was going to say what he had to say and keep on till he was finished.
“He happened to be in the area when the two techs came by. They had deviated from the straight flight back to base and were having themselves some fun burning jellies. He was busy mapping possible habitations in the trees beneath him and paid little attention until he noticed the techs whipping their flier back and forth through thick gray-white smoke, windows dialed open, the inside so white with the smoke he couldn’t make out the form of the pilot. He said he thought it might be a good idea to record what he was seeing, so he slipped in a new flake. And he said he thought it would be best that none of it go on public record. He saw the possibilities in that smoke. Could be profit for the family.”