Shadow Man (Paragons of Queer Speculative Fiction)

by Scott, Melissa

  "Did you get what you needed?" Reiss asked at last, raising his voice to carry over the whine of the jigg's motor and the rush of the transports in the fast lane.

  "Partly."

  "Starli's good people."

  "I still need parts," Tatian said. "Anyone you'd recommend at the port?"

  Reiss shrugged, not taking his hands from the steering bar. "You're better connected there than I am. I usually end up buying from Guinard's."

  Guinard's boasted of being the only tech supply house on Hara with multiple licenses; it was correspondingly expensive. Tatian sighed again. That meant he had the choice of paying Guinard's prices or talking to Prane Am, and neither was particularly appealing. For a moment, he wondered if there was any point in talking to Eshe Isabon or Shraga Arsidy, but dismissed the thought almost as soon as it had formed. All off-worlders guarded their sources of supply jealously; even his closest friends would be reluctant to reveal their company's secrets to an outsider. Am, at least, was her own agent.

  The starport itself lay on the flat land of the first great plateau: barren land, by Haran standard, good for nothing but the ubiquitous drift-grass. The indigenes mixed its fibers into their bricks, strengthening the coarse clay. Stiller was rich in drift-grass, if nothing else. They had easily been able to spare the land for the port, and in any case, Tatian thought, they had been well paid. He could see the towers of the docking cradles over the roofs of the support buildings, top lights blazing red and white even in the daytime. He counted the reds as the jigg turned onto the approach lane: seven shuttles loading, which meant at least seven bulk carriers in orbit overhead. It was definitely getting close to Midsummer, and the first big deliveries from the mesnies; he only hoped he hadn't left his repair too long.

  Reiss pulled the jigg to a stop in the shade of the Central Administration building. "Do you want me to wait?" he asked.

  Tatian shook his head. "No. Take your friend home, and then tell Derry what's happened. Tell her to put some sort of plausible excuse on record, just in case someone decides to check up on us."

  "But you already paid the mosstaas," the fem said, sounding startled, and then looked as though %e wished %e hadn't spoken.

  "I'm more concerned about IDCA," Tatian said, still looking at Reiss. The younger man nodded, his expression for once somewhat chastened. "I want it taken care of, Reiss."

  "I will, baas," the younger man said. At his gesture, the fem scrambled forward into the passenger seat, and he touched the throttle again. The jigg pulled decorously away from the curb, and Tatian stepped into the sudden cool of the Administration building.

  Prane Am worked for the Port Authority itself, in the larger of the two repair facilities. Rather than use the maze of tunnels that connected the buildings, Tatian cut across the almost empty staging lot, blinking again at the heat and the gathering clouds. In a few weeks, this lot and the dozen loading bays it serviced would be filled to capacity, and draisines and shays would be backed up on the access roads, waiting their turn to unload. At the moment, though, only about half the bays were open; shays were drawn up to the platforms where off-worlders and indigenes directed the machines that moved the cargo. He surveyed them with a professional eye--Kerendach had been doing a steady out-of-season business for a while now, so their presence was to be expected, but what DTS was doing with a cargo that size this time of year was beyond him, and he made a mental note to check up on them once he got back to the office.

  He was sweating freely by the time he reached Repair One, and he thought he heard a distant rumble of thunder: the afternoon storms were arriving as usual. He ducked through the narrow doorway, pushing hard against the stiff seal, and stopped just inside to get his bearings. For once, all the internal partitions had been folded back, opening up the full central volume. In that space, a shuttle hung, suspended from a metal cradle, dwarfing even the biggest cargo movers, its one extended wing almost touching the wall above his head. The exoskeletons that crawled across its surfaces and along the cradles looked almost human-sized by comparison. There were three of them in use, clustered around the shuttle's steering jets. He stared up at them, shading his eyes against the cold glare of the working lights, and wondered which was Am. Before he could find an internal systems port, however, a speaker crackled on the wall behind him.

  "Tatian? Is that you?"

  "Hello, Am." He waited, not quite sure of his welcome. She had sounded cheerful enough, but the speaker distorted emotion.

  "Hang on a minute, I'm due break. I'll be right down."

  Tatian allowed himself a small sigh of relief and waited while one of the exoskeletons withdrew itself along a support beam. It clicked into a port at the top of a main pillar, and a small figure emerged from its center. She climbed down the long ladder and came to join him, stopping only to enter a code in the shop computer.

  "It's good to see you again," she said, and jerked her head toward the side door. "Let's go out."

  Tatian followed her through the smaller door into the alley that ran between Repair One and the technician's shed next door. It was shaded but still hot, the air heavy with the oncoming rain. The dirt-drifted paving was spotted with stains of spilled coffee and aram cuds, and the air smelled of ozone and fuel cells and the heady spice of the drift-grass.

  "I haven't seen you in ages," she said. "How're things?"

  Tatian shrugged, but couldn't repress a smile. He had half-forgotten, in the unpleasantness of their last quarrel, just how attractive she was. The close-fitting worksuit outlined the ample curves of hips and breasts; the tool belt just accentuated her tiny waist. She saw him looking and smiled back, appreciative and rueful all at once.

  "Busy," he said. "Things have been busy. And I hope I'm not taking you away from anything."

  "Nothing important," Am answered, and looked back at the half-open door. "They had a couple jets jam when they were coming in, and the owner's freaking. But, hey, it pays the rent."

  "Freelance job?" Tatian asked. Am, like most of the port technicians, rented time on the company equipment to do outside jobs, jobs that would otherwise be at the bottom of the company priority lists.

  Am made a rocking gesture with one hand, and Tatian nodded. So-so, sort-of, the motion said, and that just meant that the job had been placed through the port's gray market. Someone offered someone extra overtime, or a favor, or something--he himself had made that bargain often enough--and the job queue got rearranged.

  "Speaking of which," Am said, and smiled. "No offense, Tatian, but what brings you out here?"

  Tatian laughed. "I need to buy parts. I've got a problem with the interface box, and it looks like it'll be easier just to replace it."

  Am nodded again, her mobile face abruptly remote and serious. It was the look she always had when she was working, or thinking about work, and it had never failed to evoke an odd mix of lust and jealousy. It figured she had taken up with a mem, he thought bitterly. They would at least share that obsession.

  "I can get you a box," Am said, after a moment. "But--you have Inomatas, right?"

  "Yes."

  "That I can't do, at least not if I'm remembering your prejudices right. I can get you something secondhand, I heard there's a Mark Three Inomata available right now, or I can get you a new, up-to-the-minute clone. Take your pick."

  "That's not much of a choice," Tatian said.

  Am shrugged. "I know you hate clones. At least there're no HIVs on Hara."

  "There are plenty in the port," Tatian answered. That was another reason the pharmaceuticals spent so much time and effort on Hara: Hara was the only human-settled world that had no native HIV strain, and the off-world strains seemed to find no toe-hold in the indigenous population. Unfortunately, whatever it was that protected the indigenes--and no one had isolated it yet--had absolutely no effect on the resident off-worlders.

  "For a druggist, you're pretty phobic about used parts," Am said.

  "That's not the issue," Tatian said, and bit off what could easi
ly escalate into a too-familiar quarrel. Am had a technician's contempt for the softer sciences. "You said there was a Mark Three, a real Inomata. How would it work with the system I've got? And how much are they asking for it?"

  "I can get it for about two-fifty, three hundred cd," Am answered. "But that doesn't include installation."

  "I've got someone who'll take care of that."

  Am nodded. "There shouldn't be any problem tying it into your present system--you were running the Three-Eight, right?"

  "Right." Trust her to remember that, if nothing else, Tatian thought.

  "You may find it a little slower, but you'll get used to that."

  "How much slower?" Tatian asked.

  "The difference is in nanoseconds, but sometimes it feels perceptibly different, mainly when large blocks of data are involved." Am shrugged again. "I think a lot of it's psychological."

  Tatian sighed. He didn't like secondhand bioware, less from any rational fears--risk of infection or rejection--than a childhood terror of bodysnatchers, the killers who had roamed the cities of Dodona, murdering for the expensive implants people wore beneath their skin. The worst of the gangs had been broken before he was born, but they had remained part of Dodonan folklore. But the alternative was a clone, and even with Am's help and advice, there was simply too much risk of getting a defective part. "I'd rather get the real Inomata," he said, and Am nodded.

  "That's what I'd do."

  "Will you broker for me? I'd take it as a favor, Am."

  "All right." She glanced sideways, consulting internal systems. "It'll be three hundred--and I don't suppose you have it with you?"

  Tatian shook his head. "I can wire it."

  "All right--" She broke off as a door opened in the technician's shed, mobile face drawing into a sudden frown. Tatian glanced over his shoulder, curious, to see a tall mem in a sleeveless overall and a worn-looking worksuit standing in the doorway.

  "I thought we were taking break together, Am," e said. The accent was Haran, unmistakably, and the jealous note was equally clear.

  Tatian scowled, and Am said hastily, "This is business, Mous. I'll be over in a minute."

  "Æ?" the Haran said, with patent disbelief, and Am's frown deepened.

  "Don't give me this shit, Mous. I'll be in in a minute, okay?"

  "Oh, yes," the Haran said bitterly, and closed the door with a thump.

  "Going native," Tatian quoted, with equal bitterness, and Am glared at him.

  "Don't you start."

  "I thought you were straight, straight as in liking men," Tatian said.

  "I am straight," Am said, but the words lacked conviction. "Mous, he..."

  "e is a mem," Tatian said. "I don't care what e calls imself, e's a mem, and that makes you at the very least differently straight from when you were sleeping with me."

  "And what the hell business is it of yours?" Am demanded. "You and I were pillow-friends, and that's all. If I want something different, that's my affair."

  "You gave me a hard time about going native," Tatian said. "Just because I have to deal with the indigenes based on what they tell me they are. But I'm not the one who's changed my tastes and not bothered to tell anyone."

  Am glared at him for a moment. "All right, I'm di, I guess. Are you happy now? It's not exactly what I expected either."

  ''I--" Tatian stopped, shaking his head. Adults don't change their minds, he wanted to say, not about something as important as this. And if they do, they tell people, and then they apologize. And most of all, they don't harass me for doing exactly what you're already thinking about doing. I don't do trade, never have, it's not fair-- He took a deep breath. "All right. I suppose it's none of my business. But I've never played trade, and you know it."

  "I know," Am agreed, looking away, and there was a little silence. "I'm sorry," she said, after a moment, and looked back with a smile that was more of a grimace. "I shouldn't've said that. It's this fucking planet. Mixes everything up."

  And that, Tatian knew, was as close to an apology as he was going to get. "I'll wire you the money," he said, and immediately wondered if he should have said more.

  Am nodded, her eyes already drifting to the door. "I'll tell Cesar to hold the box for me."

  "Thanks," Tatian said, and she gestured vaguely.

  "No problem. I'll see you around."

  There was no alternative but to take the monorail back to Bonemarche. He stood on the high, bare platform, wishing that the knot of indigenes in janitorial coveralls hadn't taken up all the narrow band of shade, wishing that he had a parasol like the old woman in traditional dress who waiting in solitary splendor at the far end of the platform. The sun was veiled by high, thin clouds, but the heat was fierce in the damp air; toward Bonemarche, the horizon was purple with the promise of the afternoon storms. As the notice board began to flash, signaling the approaching train, he thought he saw Eshe Isabon hurrying up the ramp to the platform, but he wasn't in the mood for company. He stepped back, putting a pillar between them, and was glad when %e didn't seem to notice his presence.

  Not for the first time since he'd come to Hara, he found himself wondering why he'd accepted this assignment. He could have stayed on Joshua, stayed with Mali Kaysa--sane, sensible, man-straight Kaysa, complicated in ways he understood. He closed his eyes, shutting out the white sky, the dark horizon, remembering instead the lights of Helensport and the cool nights when they'd walked home together from one of the clubs or a show or even just from working late. He could almost feel her hand cool in his, hear her laughter and the cheerful voice of the demi couple, a woman and a fem, who shared the narrow garden between their rented houses. They had thrown good parties, that pair, and he remembered an image from one with special clarity: Kaysa with her mahogany hair straight as rain, for once freed from its braid to flow almost to her waist, standing in the blued light of the door lantern. She had been watching a man and a woman, friends of hers from the translators' office where she worked, going through the first almost ritual questions, each trying to signal sexual interest without going too far, just in case the other wasn't interested.

  "You could've told him she was man-straight," Tatian had said, and put his arm around her waist.

  "I'm not a matchmaker," Kaysa had answered, and leaned companionably against him. "Besides, this is more fun."

  That memory had an ironic feeling to it now, on Hara, where there weren't any rules, or at least not ones that he could accept as normal, or even reasonable. That party had been one of the last ordinary nights before he'd been offered the Haran assignment--which paid too well, offered too much chance of promotion, to refuse--and he clung to the memory. The people had been sane, reasonable, ordinary, had known who and what they were: it was something to hold to on Hara.

  He found a seat in the corner of the poorly cooled car away from the fading sunlight and settled in for the ride back to Bonemarche, listening with half an ear to the chatter of the half-dozen or so indigenes who shared the car. Outside the window, the thick grasses rose and fell in the rising breeze, the half-open seedheads of the flaxen tossing like foam. The sky over Bonemarche was dark with clouds, and he saw the first bolts of lightning streak from cloud to sea. The monorail track was the highest thing on the upper plain, always vulnerable, and he was relieved when the train negotiated the curves of the descent without incident and passed between the first buildings, following the Portroad into the city. By the time the train pulled into the station at Harborlook, the first drops of rain were falling, leaving damp patches ten centimeters wide in the dust of the platform.

  He shared a ride back to the Estrange with a pair of technicians from WestSiCo, who spent most of the ride mumbling arcane shipping formulae. They reached Drapdevel Court just as the rain was ending. The court was mostly dry, for once, just a few puddles starting to steam as the clouds broke, and he pushed open the office door without bothering to take off his shoes. To his surprise, Derebought was sitting at the lobby console, the pri
vacyscreen unfolded along the desktop edge.

  "I'm glad you're back, Tatian, these--people--have been waiting to see you."

  Tatian looked sideways into the little waiting area, wondering what else would go wrong today, and sighed deeply, recognizing the IDCA agents sitting on the padded bench. "What do you want?"

  Stevins Jhirad grinned, and unfolded þimself from the bench. Þe was tall for a mem--wasn't much like the stereotype of a mem at all, Tatian thought, not for the first time. Þe was too tall, too thin, most of all too quick of tongue and hand, more like a herm than a mem.

  "To talk to you, what else?" þe said, still smiling.

  "Talk away," Tatian answered. NAPD's dealings with the Interstellar Disease Control Agency were infrequent, but had rarely been profitable or pleasant.

  "In private, if you don't mind, Tatian." That was Kassa Valmy, rising easily to stand by her partner. She smiled then, as though to rob the words of any threat, but Tatian didn't feel particularly reassured.

  "Is there a problem?" he asked, and waved them ahead of him into his office. If there was a problem, it wouldn't come from business, he added silently, was more likely to be something personal--either his encounter with the mosstaas this morning, though that seemed unlikely, or Reiss. Probably Reiss, he thought, and closed the door carefully behind him, gesturing for the others to take a seat.

  Jhirad settled þimself comfortably in the nicer of the client's chairs, cocking one long leg across the other, but Valmy shook her head. "I'll stand, thanks. I've been sitting all day."

  "Suit yourself." Tatian sat down at the desk and touched the spot that lit the desktop screens. Nothing popped to the surface, neither urgent mail nor internal files requiring instant attention, and he ran his hand across the shadowscreen, transforming the display to meaningless geometric patterns. "So what can I do for you?"