Flesh and Gold

by Phyllis Gotlieb

  He went down the ramp and into the anteroom where Lebedev had watched the robots attending the lattices of embryos under the infrareds. He did not look at them but elongated his silver arm to pluck down the spy-eye Lebedev had not noticed, removed the spool recording that showed Lebedev watching, reduced it to an inert pellet in a flash of his personal autoclave, refilled the capsule with a fresh wire and replaced it. His signal opened one of the doors Lebedev had found locked and he went through.

  A third of the room beyond was taken up by a tier of bunk beds, one occupied by a snoring Solthree guard. Next to the bunks was an office table with an ordinary medikit opened on it, and beside it a squatting Varvani woman crocheting a long scarflike piece in purple silk with an ivory hook.

  All other space in the room was occupied by the cylindrical tank of water bubbling with tiny streams of oxygen where Kobai hunkered at the bottom under the cold white light with her arms folded and her tail curled up like a roll of parchment. Her face was sullen. She grimaced at the Lyhhrt and turned her head away.

  He stood with his silver hands and forearms against the glastex wall and regarded her the way he saw things, as an electronic image, for a moment before he engaged the mind back of those furiously sparkling eyes and began to tell her how babies are made.

  ME? A BABY? WHAT IS A BABY??? Inside ME?? ALIVE? like the lugworm crawl in the dung-fish belly? NO! come out of me like SHIT? I want to puke. NO!! NO NO NONO!! Take it away from me, I don’t want this BABY!!

  From when I let Siko or Pers or Om make the in-out it gives me this THING? Everybody makes in-out. I’m the very first? First of whats? Folk that make the New One in the belly! Let me out of here! Why you ask where I think the Folk person come from? Everybody know a New One fall down from Upthere when an Old One die.

  I want to die. I am like dead in these walls with this thing inside feed off my meat! All my old Folk in the free water forgot me, you bet. You machine man you don’t know what is to be in a cage and no one of the same breath with an arm around you to say Wake up, Kobai, new day, come work with me, come eat, let me kiss you, come make love, come sleep. Not even one friend.

  :I am trying to be your friend,: said the Lyhhrt.

  :Then let me out! Please, let me go home and pick the gold!:

  :I cannot let you out.:

  :You gather of all those cold hard pieces, you don’t know what is a friend!: Face twisted in a snarl, she was on her knees, fists beating on them and her tail rippling as in a windstorm.

  Inside the gathering of machine parts the Lyhhrt was nearly as cold as the salt seas Kobai swam in, and somewhat slimy, not one who would be attractive to her. He considered words carefully; it was rare for him to speak his mind as an independent person. He esped the others: the Varvani with her skein of silk was thinking of home, and the fellow on the bunk was dreaming of being somewhere in the universe that was warmer and sunnier than Fthel V; he made sure they would not esp him.

  Finally he said, :I am a fleshly being who needs these metal parts to work in as you need water, and they are a kind of cage.:

  He opened his mind to her, as far as he thought she would understand a person who wanted only to be lying in a layer among his fellows with pseudopods entwined under the wet and grey-green skies of his world. :I know what it is to be alone and lonely far from home.: He added, :When you have this baby it will be outside of you and taken care of, you will be free of it.: He dared not promise her that she would be truly free, or that no one would ever again force her to bear a child.

  She pulled herself back and down into a hard knot, with her arms wrapped around her legs and her tail rolled up again. :Free is not what you want to say to me, Lord jelly-in-the-Machine. I will die before I have this Baby-thing, and then I will be free.:

  FIVE

  Khagodis: Skerow and Evarny

  Port Manganese is the star-shaped main feature on the map of Southern Vineland, a desert tract belying its name. Although the Port is as vital to Khagodis as Starry Nova is to Galactic Federation, it is a simple and homely facility, where travelers debark from their shuttle capsules into a huge round stone building to be sorted into conveyances according to their world of origin and local destination.

  Khagodi, along with Varvani and other weighty outworld travelers, board railway flatcars shaded by umbrellas and drawn by steam engines; the tracks form the star that shapes the Port. Kylkladi run the airship lines that carry lighter passengers. Their helium balloons are decorated with colorful advertisements in symbol lingua for establishments like Ygglar’s, in Kylklar’s Port Na’at, where discriminating shoppers may buy gifts of fashion and refinement.

  Threyha had boarded the transworld shuttle that hooked on to the solar-sailer Yankee Clipper, and after saying goodbye, Skerow spent the afternoon waiting for the intercontinental train that led to the ferry. She had rented an alcove with bath, and drowsed there for a while; now, wrapped in a white flax aba against the heat, she was resting on the balustrade looking down into the great round courtyard; people of many worlds were buying tickets at the railings that encircled the communications center built around towering antennas that rose far above the roof. Every once in a while some official would dash about with a banner to summon a group for boarding.

  A muted roar, like that of a far-off crowd, reverberated around the stone walls, a comfortable sound, and the skylights were covered with dust that softened the afternoon glare. But Eskat, who did not like noise, shrank fearfully against Skerow and sucked his bead. She was not at ease either; her mind was still echoing with the conversations of the last few days, and she longed above all to do the forbidden: take a side trip to Nohl’s estate and pin him to the wall. She dared not try it for fear of prejudicing any case against him.

  As she watched she sensed something else familiar and very old: a mind resting along hers, as if someone were sharing a bath with her. Her heartbeats tangled for the moment in which she found the eyes meeting hers: those of Evarny, who had been her husband. Who had divorced her when their daughter had died and they were left childless.

  She had not seen him for more than thirty-five years.

  :Blessings,: he said. :In spite of your terrible experiences you seem in good health.:

  He was still sharp-colored; she said, :I am. You look as I remembered you.:

  :Perhaps. Will you come down? I want to talk to you.:

  :Very well.: She could not think what he would have to say to her. But he seemed to know more of her than she knew of him. After she had descended by the lift she waited near the entrance way because Eskat was trembling so hard in fear of the crowd, and watched Evarny working his way around the knots of people toward her. He stepped briskly, like a true Northern man, but as he came to face her it was strange to find how short he seemed, compared with the big Southerners she had become used to, like Thordh and Commissioner Erha; they were just her height, and Evarny was half a head shorter.

  He led her past the lifts and outside through an arcade into a gazebo, where a failed garden was struggling in the hard-baked earth under the hot sun. Eskat had crept under her arm, and clung to a fold of her aba, sleeping. “You still keep that detestable little beast,” he said, a remark not meant to be ill-natured.

  She did not answer it. “I hope there is no bad news. I trust your family is well?”

  “I have one son.” She knew that his fertility was as weak as her own, but the new wife with whom he had hoped to strengthen it had evidently not done this. He added quickly, “No bad news, but there is a change of plans.”

  “What do you mean? Have you been sent here to tell me this?”

  “I have been living here. Last year I was appointed Head Galactic Federation Representative for Khagodis. I have tried to reach you ever since I heard of Thordh’s death, but you had left no address.”

  “My sisters have it—but go on.”

  “I want to ask if you might possibly change your itinerary and take over an important case of Thordh’s.”

  “Thordh!
There is no getting away from him! And I have hardly been home!”

  “It is an Interworld Trade case. One of the witnesses is ill of poisoning and may die, half the parties are outworlders, and we cannot keep them here forever.”

  “I knew of that case, I was to sit on it as Thordh’s understudy. Poisoning? It must have been brought forward then. But Evarny, I am not qualified.”

  “You not qualified? You were his understudy—now you are a senior interworld judge.”

  “Yes, and there are many others at least as competent as I.”

  “May be, but their appointment books are full, and this case came up too quickly to be put on the quarteryear calendar.” He reached into a carryall looped around his neck and shoulder. “Here is the seal of order, and this is your ring of office.”

  She recognized them both. The heavy silver thumb ring was set with an opal. “This is too sudden for me.”

  “Frankly, it is far too sudden for the attorneys and clerks. They have only now gathered all the principals together because of this endangered witness. Of course I told them I meant to approach you, but your presence is still something they did not expect.”

  She grimaced slightly. “I imagine so. This sort of promotion is no favor to me. Thordh died very strangely, and I am sure the Zarandu unloaded a heavy freight of gossip and rumor along with the passengers. His friends and well-wishers in court will look at me cross-eyed, believe I coupled with him, the way his wife Thasse did, implicate me in his death, try me in their minds, and find me guilty.”

  He had raised his hand as if to touch her, and pulled back. “Blessed Skerow, you have reached a powerful depth of cynicism!”

  “I have nearly killed and nearly been killed, by one of my own people, who are so deeply respected for justice and morality.”

  “That does not disqualify you from dispensing justice. You rode circuit with Thordh for over twenty years without being stained by the rumors that clung to him. I have followed your career.”

  “I still feel too close to Thordh, in an unpleasant way, to want to have much to do with his cases, and I don’t care to face a court that is inimical to me—but yes, I am sure I may still dispense justice. I took the minor cases, when I worked with Thordh, but I did not resent it, because he was the senior, and I learned much from my travels. I am simply not feeling very strong.”

  “You know everything Thordh did and there were never ugly rumors about you.”

  “There were not. Tell me, Evarny: you say you followed my career, and yet you never once sent me a message. Why?”

  “Perhaps I thought you might despise me.”

  “You were right. Perhaps I did, then. I hope I have got over that.”

  He was a little taken aback. “Will you stand on this case, then? I confess I have bought you berths on the train and ferry to Burning Mountain in the hope that you would.”

  “Yes, I will.” He had had the grace not to mention that it would go ill with him in the eyes of his government superiors if he failed to persuade her. She was experienced enough to know that.

  “The Forest Line train boards at fifteen ticks of twenty. Here are the ring and seal. Give them to the Officer of Court and she will invest you. And thank you, Skerow.” He presented his tongue.

  “May your one son beget thousands,” she said, and bowed her head to touch his tongue with hers.

  Burning Mountain was an extinct volcano, but the town built at its base was hotter than Port Manganese and very damp. The Khagodi Division of Interworld Court had been established here through political deals with several worlds, at a time when Khagodis was more innocently impressed with its membership in Galactic Federation than it is now. The courthouse’s construction had been financed and its site chosen by Kylkladi, mainly for their own comfort—Khagodi do not like extreme heat—and one of the building’s most ridiculed features was the clustering, in the streets around it, of a great many vending machines dispensing antihistamines and remedies for scale-rot and psoriatic fungus—local hot-weather plagues of reptile primates.

  Yet Skerow had always found the building graceful, and even pleasant in the temperate winter months. The Kylkladi had built a model of their most common house style, the bower, on a tremendous scale: a circle of reinforced saplings of ebbeb, an equatorial tree that was the tallest in the world, with the branches curved to join at the top and the thin trunks interwoven with boughs and rainproofed preserved leaves, layered so that light was let in and rain kept out. Several banks of fans hung beneath the top of the dome, and their whickering leaf-shaped blades dispersed some of the intense heat. Skerow thought it was too graceful a place for men and women to be condemned in.

  She had only a half day to listen to recorded accounts of charges and pretrial reports, and spent them resting in the basin of the Court’s guest suite. The trial she was to sit on, Interworld Trade Consortium against Goldyne Incorporated was only one small part of a huge series of legal actions that involved fraud, market manipulation on several worlds, and insider trading, with theft, extortion, bribery, and sexual scandal on the side. . . .

  Skerow’s mind lingered on Evarny, a man restless in mind and body. She wondered how he liked the languid South, whether he still lived alongside his none-too-fertile wife, chided herself for making useless conjectures, and made them anyway.

  She wished she had not met him, had missed him, gone home; wrenched her mind away, opened the books, and switched on the reports.

  Goldyne, a Solthree firm that imported and used gold for manufacturing its instruments, had expanded to lend gold at cheap rates to mines on Sol III and other worlds wherever production might be delayed because of local strikes or other uninsurable conditions. . . .

  The subject of gold made Skerow uneasy.

  . . . Goldyne was only the newest of a series of names used by a firm eager to shift off a sleazy reputation gathered from earlier shady dealings. In its latest incarnation as a lender of gold it rivaled the Interworld Trade Consortium. Goldyne’s services were so popular that they made the price of gold fluctuate and drag that of other ores with it.

  Now Goldyne was charged with stealing from the Consortium the gold that it was lending to Federation worlds; because several Khagodi merchants working for the ITC were accused of supplying some of the ore, they were being tried on Khagodis. There would be many other charges and other trials.

  Zamos Corporation was an important member of the Consortium, and was listed among the accusers. Skerow did not like the chain of associations that the name set off in her mind: Zamos, Kobai, Khagodi, Nohl, gold, Isthmuses, Nohl, Consortium, Zamos. They knotted themselves uneasily into her dreams, twisting and winding under the tropic storms through a night of unsatisfying sleep.

  Skerow took her place without formality under the ceiling fans and looked out over the courtroom. The air was still cool, but smelled of the heat to come. The principals were filing in, outworlders settling themselves in chairs, slings, or harnesses, scratching the itching skin around their oxygen capsules; her landsmen easing themselves into whatever tail-resting positions they would find most comfortable during the long morning’s work. The dawn was green and mysterious; it muted the men’s colors, and darkened the shapes of the women. Light sparked to life in arched tubes of coldlight that ran up the room’s walls and met in the center to repeat its lines. Under these arches figures became flat and either garish or dun-colored, the helmets of telepaths glinted dully. Someone behind the scenes hauled a squeaky lever that turned on the electricity, observers and journalists switched on recorders, display screens, and translation machines.

  The Bailiff’s Clerk came forward and began to read the long list of indictments concerning Khagodis. While this was going on one of the lawyers for the ITC, a Solthree named Blaylock, noticed that a clerk had been beckoning to him from the side entry. He slipped away, and after a moment of conferring signaled to his team that he was leaving. When he returned the reader had reached an item concerning the three Goldyne representatives based o
n the world: Walton Chong, Joseph Ferrier, and Jennifer Halet, all of whom were included in a charge of paying Khagodi to obtain gold.

  After a whispering consultation with his colleagues, Blaylock raised a hand and said, “I beg your pardon, Madame Skerow, but an important matter has come up and I must discuss it with you.”

  “Will you come forward and tell what it is, sir?”

  The man had turned quite red in the face, and his upper lip glistened with sweat. He said in a near whisper that Skerow had to turn her head to hear: “An essential witness, who is in danger of dying, has refused to testify and says—Madame, it concerns you, and I can’t say any more here, would you come with me and speak to the Court Officer?”

  “Counselor, have you given any thought to what you have said already?”

  “Madame, you wouldn’t believe how much thought I have been forced to give these few words.”

  “One moment,” Skerow said. “Members of the audience, there will be a recess of one stad.” The members grumbled, because even that short a fall of the clockweights would take them much further into the heat of the day. The young woman representing Goldyne tapped the floor with her tail, but before she could speak Skerow said, “If it is warranted, you will learn everything.”

  From behind the judge’s rostrum a ramp led underground to the administration offices; it was cooler here, but damper. Following Blaylock and followed in turn by two more of his lawyers and the clerk, Skerow, used to leading the way in these situations, felt disoriented and almost like a prisoner.

  The Court Officer, Ossta, a sharp old Northern woman with mauve glints to her scales, called from her archway, “Hullo, Skerow! What are you doing here now?”

  Blaylock said quickly, “Madame Ossta, I have an urgent matter to discuss with the judge in your presence.”

  “Indeed, Counselor? Do we need all these other fellows?”

  “Yes, Madame. The clerk may stand off, but my law-brothers should know what I know.” He stood clasping his hands, flanked by two slightly shorter associates and facing two very tall Khagodi.