by Jo Clayton
This shift had knocked her off-balance, but she wasn't as frightened as she had been; these were professionals, not about to start slaughtering indiscriminately-or raping, gods be blessed-even that psycho with the deathgrip on her arm. Her head was getting addled trying to keep hold of her vermin army, i•was hard to talk or think, so she let them go running off, if she needed them she could always round up another horde.
"Transit Guard," she said; when the grip on her arm tightened yet more, she added hastily, "He's a veal hound with the hots forme. I was trying to get away from him." Tension made her voice husky.
The bossman lifted his hand. Muted by the thickness of the wall she heard the guard moving past the office, his footsteps quicker. He hurried on down the hall.
She shivered, sweat crawled down her neck. "It'd be a good idea to set that lock again; he'll be back to try these doors once he's sure he lost me. And in a rancid mood you better believe."
"Why do you warn us?"
"Because he makes my skin crawl." She licked her lips. "I'd rather your lot than him."
He nodded. She could feel he was pleased with her, a dusty, creaky sort of pleasure. "It locks automatically," he said. "Sit down on the desk here, child. Lute, let go of her arm, please." He waited until she was settled, then went on, "We will stay here until that beast is finished with his explorations. Would he dare use the guard scanner to satisfy his lusts? Is the Authority here so corrupt they allow the gratuitous seduction of children?" Corrupt? Gratuitous seduction? Pedantic prissy kidnapper?
Shadith bit her lip, winced as her teeth hit the cut. "That guard's been harrying me back and forth across the Mall for the past hour under the noses of the other guards; they knew what was going on and didn't give a shit." His eyes went blank at the word, the crazy streak in him popped out like a distended vein, but he didn't say anything. Uh-oh, keep it clean, Shadow.
"Even if it weren't so," she went on, "I'm sure I could think up a dozen good reasons to scan the Station for someone. You could, too, sir, couldn't you?"
"I see. Lute, move the screen there, get ready to open the wall, but do not do it yet. We will wait until the beast leaves the area before we cut through. Child, sit where you are and answer questions when you are asked and keep quiet otherwise. I would rather not feed you comealong and put you with them." He indicated the silent, slumped captives with a quick gesture of a hand like a collection of sticks. "Be calm, we will do you no harm, we do not sully innocence." After that astonishing speech, he crossed to the bright orange chairs arranged in a rigid row along the wall, sat with his hands resting on his meager thighs, his tar-colored eyes shining dully as he contemplated his captives, then turned to Shadith.
"What is your name, child?"
"Shadith, sir."
"And your family, where are they?"
Shadith looked down at her hands; they were trembling. She pressed them together. "All dead."
"I see. Your homeworld?"
"A place called Ibex out back of beyond. You won't have heard of it." She rubbed thumb against thumb, nervously amused by the prevarication; in a way it was the truth, Ibex was where she acquired this body.
He accepted the answer without comment. "Where are you going?"
"University, sir."
"Why?"
"To learn more about music, ancient songs and antique instruments."
Bossman went very still, then he smiled at his second. "My Luck," he said reverently.
Lute lifted the slicer as if he raised a glass to toast the Lady. "Oh yes, sir. What a coup, the Singer landing in your lap."
Shadith swallowed, stroked her throat. The room suddenly stank of craziness. Lute was riding a wave of… something… high as the hips on a Bawang; her mind-ride fluttered with the fervor of his belief in his leader's Luck.
Bossizan clicked his tongue, annoyed at losing her attention. He spoke sharply. "What ship? When does it leave?"
Her fmgers jerked. She dropped her. hand. "One of the Ji freighters. Paepyol Hayyun Ji. They told me the shuttle starts loading sixteen forty-five."
"The guard out there. How did you catch his eye?"
"I didn't do anything. I didn't even look at him." If I could get at you, bastard, I'd rearrange your organs. How dare you imply it was my fault that slime went after me! Cool it, Shadow, you don't know what's going on here. He keeps calling you child. Be one. It couldn't hurt.
"He kept coming up behind me," she said, letting the words rush out as if she weren't taking time to think what she was saying. "And… and touching me. Yukh. It was horrible. I thought if I could just keep away from him until the shuttle was ready, everything would be all right, but he wouldn't leave me alone. He kept pushing me until he chased me down here."
"I see. You have baggage?"
"Yes, sir. I left it at Customs, in a locker. What are you going to do with me?"
"Protect you, child. Now be quiet and let me think." He leaned back, folded his arms across his chest and dosed his eyes.
Shadith ran her tongue back and forth over the cut inside her lip and tried to figure out what she'd got herself into. She couldn't tell much about the prisoners, the blacksacks were cinched in at their waists, covering arms and hands as well as head and torso. They were both male bipeds, leg-to-body ratio about the same, they both wore the sort of trousers most travelers favored, male and female alike, the kind she was wearing, tough wrinkleproof material with a number of zippered pockets. One was a lot broader and taller than the other, but that didn't mean much because she didn't know their ages. She tasted at them with her Talent, but the comealong blocked her; the drug smothered everything individual about them. If Bossman booted her out now, she wouldn't have a clue to the species of the captives, let alone their specific identities.
Bossman Prissyface. He wasn't much taller than her, a meager man, all thin bone and stringy muscle. Firmly in charge of the operation. Deft hand with locks and alarms. She stole a look at him and found it hard to picture him as a prowler. He was a bookkeeper waiting for a bus, a prim, little bookkeeper who was in no hurry to get where he was going. A cool man, but weird. He handled her sudden appearance without a blink, just folded her in and went on. She kept probing at him, using her Talent like a snake's tongue, tasting his reactions to her so she could figure out how to trick him into leaving an opening she could use to get out of this mess. He was opaque as a boulder and seemed about as responsive, but there was something srAry… the way he handled his crew… the way he kept control of them all with so little effort… no feeling in him… at least, none that she could discover, something… Walk on your toes round this one, Shadow, don't jump till you know how long's his reach.
She edged around so she could see the man who jumped her. Lute. Was that his name or short for Lieutenant? Not something you make music from, no indeed. Sleek as a seal and fast? sail he was fast. Could be a heavyworlder, though he wasn't built like the ones she knew. Could be some kind of freak. Good name for him-Freak. He killed for the pleasure of it, she could smell it on him, see it in the wet gleam of his eyes. He was watching her now, doing her over and over in his head. She did NOT touch him with her talent. Yukh! Bossman had him firmly under thumb, thank whatever.
The other three squatting silently and patiently beside the captives, they were obviously mercs, hired for the job and waiting for the boss to get on with it. She touched them, read self-satisfaction and hot pride. Men with reps and fiercely protective of them. Holding themselves higher than the scays and jacks competing with them for jobs. They reeked contentment, which told her they had a leader they liked who did things the way they liked them done.
She glanced at her ringchron. Around an hour before the Ji shuttle started loading. There wasn't all that much time for maneuvering. She sneaked another look at Lute. Not much chance either.
She heard a rattle-and some thumps next office over, then the click-clack of the guard's heels. The door shook in its slot, the latch rattled as he tried it. Get out of here, you creep.
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br /> The lock held and he moved on. Bossman sat listening intently until the sounds outside faded. One minute crept past, another. "Go, Lute," he said. "Number One, have your men prepare the Avatars."
Shadith blinked. Avatars?
Lute walked a hand along the back wall like a polypodal measuring worm, then made four swift sweeps of the slicer he'd held against Shadith's head; the cuts were only a few molecules wide, visible if you stuck your nose against the wallboard, otherwise not. He laid the slicer on the desk, gave Shadith a hard look that told her to keep her hands to herself, took twinned suction cups from his shouldertote, set them against the board, slapped the lever down with the heel of his hand and eased the cutaway section from the wall, opening a long narrow hole that exposed the steel lattice of a repairway. He leaned the panel against the desk, collected the slicer, and stood waiting.
While Lute was opening the wall, the mere answering to Number One got to his feet, made a quick hand sign to Two and Three, watched as they shrugged off equipment packs, took out a-g units and leashes. They belted the units to the captives, stretched the men horizontally on the lift fields and whipped the leashes about them, then they got to their feet and stood holding the leash handles, the bagged men floating waist high like oddly shaped balloons.
Bossman rose. "Take them out." He waited until the mercs had tugged the captives through the hole. "Shadith."
"Yes?" Shadith tensed.
"On your feet, child. We are leaving."
She slipped hastily off the desk, stood with her eyes wide and beseeching, her arms stiff at her sides, her hands knotted into fists, playing terrified child with everything in her-and underneath the play trying to convince herself she wasn't as scared as she felt. All right, Shadow, virgin, baby, pull out the stops and hit him hard.
"Let me go, please. I won't say anything. I'll be gone in an hour or so. You saved me from him, I owe you. I promise I won't say anything."
He produced a benign smile with no benignity behind it, not a trace of empathy or sympathy, as if they came from an organ he'd had excised or maybe was born without. He brushed her words away like wind noises or something with even less meaning. "Number One, leash the girl, take her out."
The burly chief merc clipped a leash around Shadith's. waist, slapped her behind and pointed at the opening. Asshole, keep your hands to yourself.
She was fuming as she climbed through and swung over the rail onto the catwalk. What would you do, oinkoid, if I went weeping to Bossman Prissface and said you promised he wouldn't sully poor little virgin me?
She started to giggle, clapped her hand over her mouth, sucked in her cheeks as the giggles threatened to burst out of her; Bossman was coming through and she had a strong feeling he wouldn't approve.
Still fizzing with suppressed giggles she watched Lute back onto the catwalk and pull the cutout section of wallboard into place after him. He wiggled the panel until he was satisfied with the fit, slapped glue patches around the cut, waited until they were set, then tripped the lever on the vacuum cups and caught them as they fell away. He tucked them into his shouldertote and stood waiting.
All desire to laugh drained out of her. It wasn't funny, not funny at all.
Bossman stepped from the shadows. "Go," he said.
Lute nodded, came loping past Shadith, edged by the two mercs and their drifting captives and went off down the catwalk; the meres followed him, towing the floating "Avatars" behind them, the bodies banging against the rails, awkward, unhandy burdens dragging back on them as they ran.
Number One waggled Shadith's leash. "Gee-up," he said.
Gritting her teeth, Shadith started after them, loping over the knitted steel mesh; it rattled and gave a little under their boots, made silence impossible. They didn't seem to mind the noise. No point in yelling for help, that's clear.
Following Lute (who seemed to be sniffing the route from the air itself) they ran without hesitation along the narrow ways, bending low when a walk overhead came zooming down until even Shadith couldn't stand upright, turning corners so acute the mercs with the captives had to rotate the bodies until they were vertical and muscle them into the other walkway. They passed half a hundred crossings, shifted through dozens of direction changes, went down ramps and up ramps, on and on through a dusty gray twilight.
Take away the leash (and she probably could have jerked free if she moved suddenly enough)-and her dismay at the thought of Lute sniffing after her through that murky twilight, beyond whatever restraints Bossman put on him-and she might have darted off down one of those. sideways, counting on speed and agility to keep her loose long enough to find her way back into the Station proper. She didn't try it.
She could sense feral things scrambling through the dark around them; if she wanted to reassemble her horde, she could do it in a gasp and a half. She didn't try it.
At times they ran through ragged veils of old web choked with dust; there were spiders like clots of darkness stirring in the shadows, hating and fearing them, heavy with poison. It wouldn't take much pushing to goad them into an attack. If she extended herself, she-could control hundreds of them, could bring them scuttling along the upper ways and launch them at the men when time and circumstance seemed optimum. She didn't try that either.
Partly it was the Lute who stopped her, the memory of his quickness and strength, his murderous efficiency. Partly, it was the mercs and their weapons. It was also Bossman, precise, pernickety priss. She didn't know what he was armed with or how he might react. And there were other reasons, little things that weighed on the side of a temporary passivity. Bossman's cryptic remark about his Luck when he learned of her interest in music and the trouble he was taking to bring her along suggested she had some value to hint and wouldn't be swatted when he got around to dealing with her. And she was itching to find out what was going on; cat-curious, that's what Aleytys called her when she was especially annoyed at something Shadith had done: you keep sticking your nose in things none of your business, it'll get cut off one of these days.
Shadith wrinkled her nose as she ran. Aleytys is turning positively stodgy. Going conservative on me. How dull. Dull. I'm dull. Duh duh duh dull. Bad as the Vrya who get so bored with living they dive into the nearest sun.
She loathed being dependent on Aleytys and Sward-held, didn't matter they were closer than most blood kin and willing. She wanted to support herself and her ship. Trouble was, a starship was a worse drain on the pocket than a drug habit, what with maintenance, docking fees, fuel, registration-if she wanted to go that route. Free-traders mostly didn't bother with registration-and got their ships confiscated if they stepped on the dignity of some local potenpot, same thing she faced with that creepy guard. No, she wanted her ship Registered out of Helvetia. There was a NAME with clout. There was a name that COST.
They ran on and on; it seemed to her they were going to run forever.
It was Swardheld's idea she go to University for a few years, that would give her body time to mature and bring her contacts she could use whatever she decided to do. He'd worked for several* Departments there and had connections all over the place, people who knew the mechanisms behind the facade. But she couldn't dredge up much enthusiasm for the idea. University made her nervous. She'd never been to school-not on her own. She'd got her education first from her family, then as apprentice to a series of extraordinary masters. As she loped through the darkness, she had very mixed feelings about University, even a touch of gratitude to Bossman Prissface trotting along at the tail of this parade; he was an excuse to put off something she'd rather not have to deal with.
None of which meant she wouldn't jump at the first good chance to escape.
The catwalk widened; the mercs ahead slowed to an easy amble.
She followed them round a sharp corner and stopped.
She was at the back end of a stubby offshoot with a steel door in the far wall. Bossman brushed past her and crouched over the latch as he had over the lock on the office door. In seconds he
had it open with no sign he'd triggered any alarms. Hmp. Clever, aren't you, little man.
Through the opening she saw a familiar cicatrice on the far wall of the corridor outside, the heavy round iris of a chute portal. Shuttle berth. Hmm. I was afraid this was where we were going.
Alert, wary, but doing her best to hide both as her situation got shakier by the minute, she followed the bobbing bodies through the door, along a short stretch of wide corridor and through an umbilical chute into a small shuttle.
The mercs took their captives into the back section, a miniature cargo hold, ratcheted them to the floor and shut off the a-g units. Yawning and relaxed, they dropped onto padded wall benches and sat with their legs stretched out, feet propped on the bodies; if they'd shouted it, they couldn't haie made it clearer they considered the job done.
Lute waited in the lock, his eyes on Shadith. Same to you, butcherboy. If you think I'm dumb enough to jump your Bossman, you got ivory between your ears.
Bossman leaned over the console, touched a sensor and dropped a barrier field between them and the mercs, blocking sound and solid objects. He swung the pilot's seat around and lowered himself into it. "Sit down, child." There were three rows of seats on each side of the cabin section, two seats in each row. He pointed to the front row on the left. "There. The inside seat. Lute, bring me her shoulderbag, please."
He took things from the bag one by one, looked them over and dropped anything he found uninteresting to the floor beside the chair. Comb, tissues, a half-empty box of lemon drops, a printed book (Songs of Ancient Elyzie-he flipped through it, dropped it), her stylus, her antique fountain pen that she kept in a plastic wrap because it leaked (he unwrapped it, took it apart, dropped the pieces and the wrapping; she fumed silently, it was her favorite poem-pen), facepaint (when she felt festive, she painted feathers on the hawk outline acid-etched on her cheek), mirror, hair clips, rubberbands, bits of this and that. He flipped through her notebook, read a few pages of her scribbles (notes and observations, lines of poems jotted down as they occurred to her). He set the notebook aside and unsnapped her coinpurse; he inspected each of the coins inside as if he suspected they were small bombs. When he was finished with that, he set the purse on the notebook and opened out another section of the bag. He found the boarding pass for the Paepyol's shuttle, read front and back, dropped it on the floor. "I think it would be best to ignore this booking, we would draw attention by canceling it and gain nothing; if the child does not show up, Ji will mark it and forget it. She could have changed her mind, it happens all the time."