Mort sat back. “Oh.”
Perhaps he understood humans less well than he thought.
“Grezzen mate to make life, Mort. Humans, at least when we’re true to our better natures, mate for life.”
Mort nodded. “An emotional bond.”
Jazen nodded. “Kit and I have been through wars. I’ve saved her life. She’s saved mine. She laughs at my good jokes and tolerates my bad ones.”
“Then you have made your choice.”
Jazen shook his head. “But Kit and I inhabit different worlds. Even though both our parents were Trueborns. Syrene and I come from the same side of the tracks. And she laughs at my jokes too.”
“Can’t humans track from either side?”
“Idiom. Doesn’t matter.” Jazen bent to reach another cylinder from his bunch, then grunted and touched his torso with a foreclaw. “Forgot to open all my mail.”
He withdrew tiny leaves from a pouch in the ventral side of his integument. “Let’s see what—”
Mort felt Jazen’s shock as he stared at one leaf, tapped its outer surface with a foreclaw tip. “Look at all these pay marks. This has to be from Yavet.”
Jazen tore at the leaf, plucked an even smaller one from it.
Mort felt emotion swell within Jazen. “The news is happy?”
The skin above Jazen’s eyes wrinkled. “It’s from Orion.”
“Your life mother?”
“She says she’s alive . . .” Jazen’s respiration became ragged and for a moment he stopped audibilizing his thoughts. “. . . Very excited I’m doing so well—how the hell did she hear? How the hell did she get my P-mail address?”
“You have said she was resourceful.”
“Yeah. Keeping me alive can’t have been . . . oh God.”
Pain spiked through Jazen’s consciousness as he reached a point further into the message. His whispered words sank until they were barely audible, although they screamed in his mind. “A year or less. From now, six months.”
“Orion is dying?”
Jazen nodded without sound. “Mort, it’s not fair.”
Mort’s own head sagged.
Every grezzen was a part of a single, anarchic family. He knew all his cousins, their thoughts, their whereabouts. Yet he, like every grezzen ever born, bonded and felt love only for the mother who bore him and suckled and trained him throughout his growth to independent size.
Mort’s mother had been old when Bartram Cutler’s henchmen had abbreviated her life. Yet Mort had felt her loss as though she had been taken from him while he was a cub.
“Jazen, whether death is fair or is not fair, it is inevitable. It is part of life.”
“That’s not what I meant, Mort. It’s not fair that life’s making me break my promise to her. When I left Yavet, I told her I would see her again. She said no, that would get me killed. So I promised.”
“When Orion dies, you will have said that which is not?”
Jazen tilted his head forward and back. “Yeah. It won’t be a prediction like saying Cutler wouldn’t get pardoned. It will be a lie.”
“But Orion is your life mother. She did not ask you at this time to keep the promise. A mother will not love her son less if a promise is unkept.”
“Exactly.” Jazen’s small eyes began to leak. “That makes it worse. Mort, did you see your mother before she died?”
Mort dropped his head. “I did not.”
“But you don’t feel bad about that, do you? I mean, you’re a grezzen. You were in her mind.”
“Yes, that is true. If I had not been in her mind my grief would have been unbearable. Even so, failing to reach her before she died haunts me even now.”
Jazen remained folded and silent for a long period. His thoughts were a scrambled and conflicted mass. Finally, he stood, and walked toward the hatch as his thoughts became clear.
“You’ll still have Kit to keep you company all the way to Dead End. You don’t need me.”
“That is true. But Jazen, what about Kit and Syrene? And what is in your mind will break many rules.”
“Taking leave from a cush job like this is bending rules, not breaking them. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll square all that later. If the plan goes wrong, I won’t need to.”
“But you have no plan.”
“True. I also have no time. A minute late in this is late forever. So I also have no choice.” Jazen resumed his walk toward the hatch.
Mort considered bounding past Jazen, and blocking his exit. What Jazen was planning could result in Jazen’s own death. And would certainly create sorrow and anxiety for Kit.
But Mort stood motionless and watched Jazen disappear through the hatch.
Perhaps if he, Mort, had said that which is not, had refrained from sharing his remorse that he had not reached his own mother, Mort’s human would not be attempting this foolish and dangerous thing. But, as a mother’s son himself, he knew he would do exactly the same. It would not matter what others said or did not say.
TWENTY
I disembarked Gateway after I left Dr. Mort’s Mojo Restoration Clinic, then rode the tuber north again, to Shipyard, then walked straight to Jazen’s.
As I entered Jazen’s I bumped shoulders with a departing het couple. They had to hold one another up, and giggled while whispering unprivately about what came next. Given their condition, they would be disappointed when they found that what came next was catatonic sleep followed by the mother of all hangovers. The night had slipped away to that time in bars when it was no longer young, and the pair turned out to be Jazen’s last remaining customers. But Syrene wasn’t alone.
She stood behind the bar, side by side and heads together with a very slightly younger and very slightly thinner version of herself. The other courtesan wore the scarlet of a senior apprentice, and propped a handheld on the bar top with one hand so Syrene could read its screen.
The two looked up, saw me.
Syrene whispered a single word to the young lady in red, who closed down her handheld, and carried it as she passed me on her way out. As far as she knew, I was a potential customer, and the look she gave me almost made me one.
I turned and watched until she disappeared out the door, as she returned to Salon Dessele next door, where the night was young all day.
Syrene said, “That one’ll have her own salon inside three years. She’s got a head for business.”
“Not just a head.”
On Bren, a senior Marini courtesan isn’t regarded so differently from the way the Trueborns regard, say, a matron of registered nurses. The therapies differed, but each society respected the practitioners for their professional detachment as well as their ability to improve the human condition. A big part of Syrene’s job now was mentoring up-and-coming talent, and managing the business. Although she still kept her hand in.
“You’re back because of what I said. Forget what I said, Jazen. You know the whisky talks for me.”
And for me. If I didn’t get to the point of this visit, I’d be thinking too much about Syrene keeping her hand in, and that way lay trouble. “No. I didn’t come back because of that.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh? I don’t know whether I’m relieved or disappointed.” Tonight she had her professional detachment armor strapped on tight, which made the conversation easier for both of us.
I said, “I need to disappear.”
“What?”
I leaned on the bar, keeping it between us, and told her about the P-mail from Orion.
When I finished, Syrene’s eyes were wide. “You can’t go back to Yavet.”
“I’m not an Illegal now.”
“No. Now you’re a spy for Yavet’s blood enemy.”
“No. I’m just a relative visiting family.”
“Don’t be delusional. Jazen, even scrubbed, you’ll still be a spy.” Syrene laid her hand over mine. “Jazen, trust me, I know men. Stupidity is part of the equipment. But of all the men I’ve ever known, you’re the best stupi
d. I know you’ll take any risk for Orion, without a blink of consideration. Just like—”
Syrene looked down, scrubbed with her fingertip at a nonexistent drop on the bar, as her armor slipped for an instant. She was about to say just like I had gone to Tressel to save Kit, without settling up with another woman who I had come to love.
Syrene looked up. “Just like you did for those other soldiers so many times.”
“Alright. Then we agree there’s a profession where I’m the expert. Do I tell you how to smile at men?”
She smiled at me. Once I got her to smile, things were always okay.
Syrene shook her head. “But can you even do this? You are a soldier. You can’t just leave. And a scrub costs the moons.”
“Compassionate leave in case of immediate family illness? Routinely granted when you’re on admin assignment. Especially leave from spook central. Kit always says Howard runs the teams like one of her graduate-school seminars. Cut class now, tell me later. And I’ve got leave accumulated clear out past the moons.”
“But the money?”
I grinned. “I’ve got a check from a business that’s up three hundred ten percent. Remember?”
She smiled, nodded. Then the smile faded. “The princess is going with you?”
Why hadn’t I seen that one coming? “Uh, no.”
“But you’ve made peace with her? And she approves this thing you intend to do? She’s a bigger soldier even than you. If she thinks it’s too risky, I won’t help you.”
Orion was dying. There wasn’t time, even if Kit and I were on speaking terms. And “go fuck yourself” wasn’t precisely an invitation to make peace. Well, Orion told me once, after she had spoofed a vice cop she snitched for, that if the truth won’t set you free, lie your ass off.
“Of course.”
Syrene frowned.
And if lying your ass off still doesn’t get you where you need to be, just play off two women you love one against the other, like a total jerk. An overriding noble cause earns one get-out-of-jerk-free card. Doesn’t it?
“Kit thinks it’s risky, too, but she says she supports me in my decision because she loves me. Do you disagree with her?”
Syrene looked away for a minute, looked back at me. “Okay.”
I don’t think she believed one word I said. But maybe she told herself it was all for a noble cause, too. Or maybe she had also finally decided I could go fuck myself.
I said, “I haven’t kept up. Who do I need to see these days?”
“To get to Yavet clean? That hasn’t changed, Jazen. Cohon controls all the contraband that moves between Mousetrap and half the outworlds, especially Yavet. Girls, guns, opiates, janga, alcohol, OB and drug paraphernalia, even the silly stuff like porn . . . everything but P-mail.”
Everybody knew Ya Ya Cohon by reputation. Nobody admitted to ever having seen him.
I asked, “You know how to reach him?”
Syrene blinked.
It was only a blink, but it didn’t need to be more than that between us. It only stood to reason that Shipyard’s most notorious gangster would know its most professional professional, uh, personally. If you can’t deal with a courtesan’s work, don’t fall in love with one. Or with an assassin, for that matter.
She said, “I can arrange for you to get to Ya Ya. Jazen, he’ll drive a hard bargain. Don’t cross him. And don’t lie to him. He’ll test you, even at times when you don’t know he’s still testing. And if you ever fail one of his tests, he’ll have you killed in a heartbeat.”
“A sweetheart. Anything else?”
She touched my cheek. “Remember me.” She turned away, straightened bottles behind the bar. “I’ll text you in clear with contact information as soon as I get it.” She shooed me with one hand. “Get out of here.”
In that moment, I realized that Syrene had done the thinking for the both of us.
Syrene knew, even though I hadn’t until that moment, that, despite the gulf in backgrounds that separated Kit from me, that would always separate Kit from me, I loved Kit. I had loved Kit from the first moment I saw her, and I always would love her, even if I never saw her again.
Syrene had the foresight not only to perceive that truth, but the courage to decide that it was a truth neither Syrene nor I would be able to live with in any future we might share.
I wanted to hug her. I wanted to thank her. I wanted to praise her wisdom and her nobility and her strength. But for once I had the wisdom and nobility and strength to know that would just make this ending worse for both of us. The best thing I could do now for both of us was to remember her.
When I got to the door I looked back. She still hadn’t turned around, but I saw her raise that hand she had shooed me with to her face, as though she were wiping her eyes.
Emotional armor’s hell to keep in place.
I wiped my eyes, too.
TWENTY-ONE
An hour after I left Syrene at Jazen’s, I finally got pinged with a meet setup for Ya Ya Cohon.
I had used my hour productively. Orion had always told me there was nothing you could do at three in the morning that you couldn’t do just as well during the day. In Shipyard the reverse was true.
I cashed Syrene’s check at only a modest discount for the transaction to go unreported, then cleaned out my other accounts. I could’ve raked off a boatload from Kit’s and my petty cash field account here on Mousetrap—ops maintained several at various locations around the union—and rationalized it to myself as “a loan.” You’d be surprised what qualifies as petty for a team that kills people. But I never stole from any employer, or from anybody, except to keep Orion and me from starving, and I wasn’t about to change now.
I also pulled up the compassionate leave form I had to file. I clicked the duration box marked “Indefinite,” typed into the contact information space “To be provided when determined.”
I left the optional “Explanation” block blank. If I entered the true explanation, I would be confessing intent to violate about a dozen regs and four statutes. If I filled in the “Explanation” block, but lied, I would only be violating one statute. But fraudulent procurement of leave constituted constructive desertion. For constructive desertion, they hung you.
Finally, I backdated the “Effective Date” box for yesterday, but set the “Submit” timer for tomorrow.
Next, I checked on the next outbound from Mousetrap inbound to Yavet.
Iwo Jima upshipped in the Trueborn morning. In Shipyard we defined “Trueborn morning” as the dead space between seven a.m. and noon when only mad dogs and Trueborns went out.
I didn’t check further into the schedules after I thought about it. Cohon was the smuggler, not me, and there were plenty of zig-zag routes to Yavet. How best to get a scrubbed package like me onto Yavet was what I was paying Cohon for. I hoped.
The contact info that came to me via Syrene was innocuous for her profession. Some things hide best in plain sight.
I did what I was told, which was to show up at 4 a.m. and wait in front of the Nasty Nurse.
The Nasty was a Jazen’s competitor, and its reputation for dirty needles and dirtier glassware was beneath reproach. I did have to concede that its waitress uniforms were supremely slutty.
At 4:21 a.m., two large gentlemen escorted me into the utility passage alongside the Nasty. They bagged, gagged, detagged, then zagged me.
Bagged and gagged are self explanatory. Detagging was an unpleasant procedure that removed or blocked tracking devices on or within the person. Zagging was what was done in Shipyard to a bagged, gagged, and detagged visitor who the visitee wanted to insure was so disoriented that the visitor would be unable to return uninvited.
So after being run around and up and down for thirty minutes, I couldn’t tell you where Ya Ya Cohon’s place was if I wanted to.
I can tell you it was luxuriously appointed and spacious for Shipyard. The large gentlemen unbagged and ungagged me, then chucked me into an office two stories tall, and l
eft me there.
The deck plates were covered wall-to-wall with imitation grass. That would have impressed me in the years before I first saw the real thing, which on Earth even grows wild. Behind a desk in the room’s center hung a spot-lit, gilt-framed painting of dogs playing poker. If you’ve spent time on the Motherworld, you know that’s a schlocky, mass-produced Trueborn picture that Edwin Trentin-Born’s lawn boys might have hung in their shed, if Edwin would have allowed them to defile the place in that way.
A cart, the kind that could hold cleaning supplies, was parked near the office’s door, and a dwarf with his back to me stood tiptoe on a stool, lovingly dusting the painting’s frame with a puffball on a long handle.
I sat down in a faux-leather wing chair and waited.
A gold-encrusted analog wall clock clack-clacked toward six a.m. as the dwarf kept dusting.
Finally, I asked him, “When does Mr. Cohon usually get up?”
The small man waddled down off the stool, turned, and I saw that he wore an eyepatch that matched his black brocade vest and trousers.
“Ya Ya up earlier even than this time most day.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Cohon’s butler was peep. “Peep” were Yavi little people, in the sort of pejorative slang that the Trueborns condemned as “politically incorrect.” A little person could call another little person or himself “peep.” But if a mid-levels Yavi addressed a cook or utilities sweep as “peep,” that was rude. Orion was peep. This guy was peep. But he wasn’t like Orion, who was short, but not a dwarf.
Another difference between Orion and this guy was that Orion and I lived in Yaven, Yavet’s two-hundred-level, three-billion-population stack-city capital. This guy, by his accent, was from Yot, a one-hundred-level, hundred-million-population hick stack in the Eastern Hemisphere.
Yot was known today for its odd-talking little people, who tended toward dwarfism. Yot was also known for having once been Yavet’s opium capital, when Yavet’s cities weren’t stacked and her poppies grew as wild as grass.
I said, “I grew up downlevels, too. In Yaven.”
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