‘No,’ Carlyn said. ‘As I understand it from the requisitions it’s a skeleton science team. Or… it occurred to me that maybe they’re sending one at a time in case… Well, so you only lose one at a time and not all of them at once.’
That had also occurred to Tralane. She couldn’t say something flippant to try and soak off the implications. She stared into the soapy water flowing around Carlyn’s reddened hands. ‘Carly, that gun I showed you…’
Carlyn’s hands stopped, submerged to the wrist. Tralane felt a sickly rush over her skin, as if relief and fear made a slippery cloak together.
After a minute Carlyn said, ‘I don’t have any way to defend myself, Lane. I thought I’d just try to see if I could make it work like you did and then— No. I thought I’d take it if I could use it because I got this sample back from the site. And it’s old. It’s so unusual, Kamatek, but it answers so many questions, or it could, if there was only more. And the other expedition didn’t come back with it. And I have to go. But anyway, I couldn’t figure out how to work the damned thing and then Best came and found me with it. I asked him not to tell you because— Lane, I know it was wrong. I was wrong. I’m so so sorry.’
Tralane thought it over. She felt betrayed but in a way Carlyn had done her a favour. There was a thing in the sky made of metal where a star should be and she had a daughter who was a natural teksmith, so adept that she could do in a minute what took Tralane a day to figure out. She wouldn’t have known all this, perhaps, without all that. And she could feel Carlyn’s mortal dread in her shoulders, even though it was the word ‘Kamatek’ which lodged inside her own gut. If a Kamatek depository had been located then that explained a lot about the war and the silences, the deceptions, the lack of public knowledge. She tried and failed to suppress a thrilled jolt of anticipation because it was disloyal when Carlyn was so afraid.
‘I understand,’ she said, and she did. She patted Carlyn and nudged her out of the way of the sink. ‘Let me finish that. You make some tea.’ She couldn’t directly forgive her because that would have dragged up too much there was no point in dragging up, but there was no need to. They both knew what it meant and that it was over.
Tralane washed the plates, grateful to be able to do a job well and easily, then dried her hands. ‘I can’t give you the gun,’ she said. ‘It’s dangerous if used incorrectly and—’
‘You don’t need to explain,’ Carlyn said. ‘I’ve proved I can’t use it.’
Tralane bit her lip, thinking, but all her solutions only led others into danger. ‘You could play it sick. I’m sure there’s something you could take that would fake a good illness.’
‘No. I’m going.’ As Carlyn looked up, her eyes were full of the same excitement that Tralane felt at the prospect of a discovery. ‘But if I don’t come back I’ve left my affairs in Duck’s hands.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Lane said. ‘Of course you’ll come back.’
‘Yeah,’ Carlyn said. ‘Well at least there’s no trouble with the journey now they got the portgate up and running. In and out like the proverbial Lothario.’ Her voice trailed off at the end of the sentence. ‘Did you know they took the tiger man to the palace?’
‘Probably a good idea.’
‘Nobody’s allowed to see him. Only the Empress, Alide and Professor Utaska.’ A note of professional jealousy had crept into her voice. ‘Because they want me to go south I can’t be in her group even though I’m going right into his territory, well nearly… Can you believe it?’
Tralane nodded. ‘They don’t trust him.’
‘Oh? I thought it was that they didn’t trust me.’
Tralane didn’t know what to say now. She put her hand out over Carlyn’s hand. ‘It’ll be okay. They’re probably just being very cautious.’
Carlyn nodded, but Tralane saw she wasn’t believed. She wasn’t convinced herself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TZABAN
Tzaban lay in his panelled room and listened to the Empress and her guards making love. He had a comfortable bed he could have been in but he lay on the stone floor under the opened window, trying not to notice the smell of its metal bars. He had expected to be imprisoned and this was much better than the cells at the barracks, but he was surprised to find how hard it was to endure even knowing that if he had really wanted to he could escape.
He felt a dull kind of defeat. After the audience he was convinced they would not listen. No, that they could not listen. Their words were poor at conveying what he meant. They didn’t seem to grasp the truth of Karoo: that you were one, but also, you were all. He felt despair, because of all the Karoo he was among the most individuated, the most able to see how the humans all lived in close-confined isolation. But even he didn’t really understand them, nor they him. He had seen they didn’t believe him when he told them that Karoo would be the end of them. The wars they fought amongst each other did not hold any precedent for them. Violent and barbaric, they hacked, smashed and exploded one another with varying degrees of ferocity. It amazed him. Even more so because. as human, once they were dead they would not return in any meaningful way. Their flesh rotted into the earth or burned to greasy ashes.
Karoo on the other hand ate each other and were reformed, becoming other, becoming new. This is why his genesis had been such a bitter surprise to them. He was made to hunt and eat, both Karoo and not-Karoo things, and they had had such high hopes for him of an entirely different kind. He ought to have been the pinnacle of their Dreaming line, a flower. But he was all pelt and teeth and none of his forms were remotely peaceable. They’d tried for years, thinking he’d change but, in the respect of his nature, he could not.
He rolled on to his back and looked up at the stars. Plains stars, he knew them all, the true stars and the glittering motes of the compass pointers which sometimes whispered to him about things in distant places. He scratched his belly and smelled the odd perfume of the Empress descend afresh from the terraces and gardens above him. It bathed him, invaded him. Avoiding it was impossible. He felt his energy subtly shift as his body responded to the commands it carried. Peace and contentment eased into his bones. He lolled in a haze of pericoital satisfaction, surprised by its pleasantness. He wondered how much the races of the plains were subject to her controls if even he was affected. It perhaps explained the relative peacefulness of those tribes whose territories bordered on the city’s own.
He found himself rolling on his back on the sculpted carpet a moment or two later and blinked in surprise. She was more potent than he’d thought. He didn’t get up. Rubbing his shoulders against the bulky wool was oddly satisfying. He fell asleep there, sprawled at the foot of the bed and woke in the middle of the night as he sensed an approach through the dark.
He rose to his feet, noticed the lamps had been put out without his noticing. Then the guard’s halberd knocked the door to announce a visitor and the bolts slid back.
Parlumi Night passed silently across the carpets, he and she greeting one another without voices. He attuned his energy to hers as was only correct with her as the dominant presence and they established an immediate rapport before they got too close to each other, he half turning aside to her approach. Her examination of him was brief and unintrusive.
‘So, here you are, the infamous Beast of the North. I have seen you in dreams of my own but you never saw me. Is it true you have no Dreaming skill at all?’
Tzaban felt himself in danger and forced himself to breathe easy although his instinct made him want to freeze. He would not let her know how much he was intimidated. Any female Karoo was potentially a threat in her ability to subjugate him to her will, but this one, halfbreed as she may be, was exceptionally charmed. Her energy was held in check but he felt it over him as wide as the sky and heavy as a storm. He had no intent of becoming hers, so he must be careful.
‘It is untrue. I stalk there most successfully.’ He wondered that he had never felt her presence. Perhaps she was lying. He would not put it past her.<
br />
‘It must be embarrassment at their failure that makes them claim it, that or they don’t know.’ This was question more than statement. Her attention closed around him.
‘I am exiled far for a reason.’
‘What exactly is so very upsetting? The hunting?’
‘I was made to unite the Dreamers. They envisaged peaceful waters and pretty meadows, an end to slaughter, an end to suffering. I am Red Death. My nature is profoundly offensive to them regardless of what I do.’
‘I wonder,’ she said thoughtfully and he heard her nail tap against her teeth. ‘Well, we’ll see what you’re really for, won’t we? My Mistress the Empress wishes you to accompany a mission south to the forest line. You are to be her agent, the shield over her diligent hands. You are to parlay for peace. Do you think you can manage such a task?’
Tzaban felt blood drain out of his face and hands. No. Of course not. She knew it as well as he did. It was impossible. Why would she ask? He waited.
‘The difficulty,’ she said after a moment, ‘is that there’s no telling a human about Karoo. They simply never get it. You will fail and they will fall. Who you side with really doesn’t matter. But what they are so bothered about does matter. To me. I don’t want it buried under a Karoo overgrowth or stuffed and abandoned with human dead like some reliquary. Not until I’ve seen it.’
He felt her uncertainty harden to a point and determine that she wanted to be sure of him. He knew he could not escape.
‘Lie on your back,’ she commanded.
He made no effort to comply. It may as well be this way as another and further pretence would serve nothing. Instead he tilted his head and growled lightly, a warning.
Night exerted the full pressure of her will immediately, perhaps sensing that no weaker action would get a result.
Tzaban remained standing and turned to face her, forehead lowered. The experience of her was overwhelming. She was a wave waiting to break on his head. The desire to kill her became nearly unbearable.
Abruptly she released her thrall. His eyes widened. It was as if he suddenly exploded back into the world.
‘Oh, I see.’ She watched him. She was the still one now. Their roles in this moment had reversed now that the essential heresy of his existence was revealed. ‘That is why.’ She thought for a moment and he could almost smell the trail of her passing across the logical hunting places: he had been exiled because he was uncontrollable. He was a predator. He was a failed chosen son of the sacred Dream. Therefore she must ask, what had become of those who had rejected him. ‘Did you kill them?’
‘A few,’ he said. His teeth hurt with the need to bite. ‘They wouldn’t stop.’
‘If I hadn’t stopped, would you kill me?’
‘Yes.’ He noticed she hadn’t suggested he couldn’t. He had no knowledge of what she was able to do, but it didn’t matter. He would have killed her or died trying.
‘Then you are an interesting anomaly,’ she said, adding with a tone of rich amusement, ‘and they made you for peace.’
‘Yes.’ He hesitated and then felt himself smile. ‘Maybe the mistake was in not specifying how peace was to be attained.’
‘Maybe,’ she said.
The question of whether they ought to test one another lay between them in the air. She could smell the truth of his statements, but she didn’t know herself whom he had ended and who spared, nor why, nor how. He in turn suspected already that she relied entirely on intimidation to do her work for her in these cases. Without meaning to he felt his right hand flex and the claws try to spring out, blunt or not, itching for the feel of flesh under them. He very deliberately turned his back to her.
‘Tzaban. What do you hope to achieve? You must have known you would end here. Even if you are let out you won’t be unwatched. Every moment you are here plans about you are being cast elsewhere. You could have run wild and nobody would have found you.’
‘I had to come.’ He felt no change in her. ‘Why do you let them carry on, when you know how it must end?’
‘The end is not certain.’ But she said this without conviction. He felt the pressure of her ease, an opening hand.
Because she didn’t believe it, he ignored the statement. ‘I can see why you have stayed here. They think you are special. You are revered. Powerful. You don’t miss Karoo.’
‘I never had Karoo!’ She spat, suddenly. His fur rippled with reaction to her anger, but it wasn’t directed at him, it merely circled and passed him, bounced off the walls and objects in long ricochets, slashing the air into bits. His hair bristled but he was trying to listen without moving and betraying his thoughts. To live so long and not be connected – the idea was nearly impossible to conceive. He at least was still joined, albeit in a self-imposed silence on both sides, but he still felt the truth of Karoo. He wondered if hers was choice, or unhappy accident of birth. If the second, how had she discovered so much of what it was to be Karoo by herself? A fleeting sense of kindred swept him from the back of his head to his tail. His hostility began to unbend itself.
Her voice was cool when she spoke. ‘Most of the people here have no idea what I am and I like it that way. The Empress, her advisers, but no more. You, on the other hand, stick out like a sore thumb.’
‘The only difference is that they are blind to your differences,’ he said, but thoughtful, sensing they were not trading insults here but instead attempting to stagger somewhere new. She did not want to be revealed.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about allegiance. She’d been in human lands and worlds more intensively and intimately than he ever wished to be. Their pathetic senses of loyalty to ideas – always confusing thoughts with reality – that might infect her too deeply and leave him exposed to threats she had yet to brew. He distended his nostrils but all he smelled was the transforming perfume of the Empress with its determination to turn everything it touched to sensual love. His body reacted helplessly – another reason not to turn.
Behind him Night’s voice wound its own spell of seduction. ‘You can never belong here. They will use you, and when that runs out they will cut you in pieces to discover how you work, what you are.’
‘Then you are useful,’ he said. For the Empress he might have agreed. She alone so far had shown him courtesy and a sweet heart. Night was too afraid to do so and that made him turn against her.
‘I have learned to be.’ Another half statement, protective, pretending what it wouldn’t deliver. She wasn’t going to be the one to take the first step. She would push him until he did what she wanted. But Tzaban could never take those terms.
‘I am useful,’ he said, though he’d have liked to see anyone try to cut him in pieces. He would have welcomed the opportunity to return the favour. Everyone here was prey and them thinking that they were otherwise irked him like an unreachable itch.
‘See you stay that way.’ He heard her acceptance of their bargain in those words that said she was watching his back. Her step forward was made. There were no details, but that was typical Karoo. One is allied or not allied; the details are unimportant and there is no limit to it.
Tzaban turned around. Night was looking at him hungrily.
‘I want to see this place,’ he said, nodding his head in the direction of the barred window through which the starred night and glittering city were visible. ‘I want to see it all.’
‘Then you’ll have to behave,’ she said, moving closer.
He felt the subtlety at the last moment. That prompt, that tug at his sense of desire. She wanted him to obey.
‘No.’ He glanced at the bars. They felt threatening now and running filled his legs and made them shake.
Already this humanoid form and all the attendant things it brought was making him so like them, so unlike what he had been before. He looked at the room and the city and saw ideas made real in a way that Karoo would never attempt and it fascinated him. Karoo would not build it. They would become it. As the humans had weapons so the Karoo had him, their peace
maker.
He took a step towards her, unthinkable in Karoo terms where any female or demi-fem determined the approach and survival of a male. He knew immediately by her mild reaction of surprise that she had no idea how unthinkable it was, knew her connections and understanding were intuitive only, not experienced, not knowing. They would change each other and there was no way to predict how.
‘No,’ he said, head down. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’
Even as he said it he recognised that he hadn’t come here by accident. Of all the human places this was the one that most closely resembled what he knew. The females were dominant and he was comforted by that even though he could not submit to it except in the way of civilised creatures, through necessity’s simple freedoms of choice that were no choice at all.
‘That’s exactly why I’m asking,’ she said and dropped the glamour of her energy like casting off a cloak. The nakedness of her ambition and intent hit him like a blow to his face. She would dare anything to satisfy her curiosity and desire. ‘Isn’t the problem between us the same as the one between you and the humans anyway? And here I am. Halfway. Dare to bridge that gap.’
Tzaban was afraid of what she was but he knew it for a root fear of male to female across the ages because they were always lesser, and could be taken or eaten without mercy.
A Karoo female when faced with a Karoo male of interesting speciation could assimilate all he was by a variety of methods; copulation, symbiosis or ingestion. It was the role of males to travel and glean. High intelligence, self-awareness and self-preservation were not features they often possessed. They were created unequal, even amongst themselves. The currency and beauty of life’s variety, as collected and prepared, was the only value they had. They were more rare lately, as Karoo had spread and its diversity had reached a plateau. They were risky business.
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