The Skill of Our Hands--A Novel

by Steven Brust

  “Ren?” Oskar came across the deck on silent bare feet. “I couldn’t find you.”

  If it hadn’t been Oskar, Ren would have said he looked frightened.

  “I’m sorry,” he added. And he looked that too.

  “If you get any less Oskar-like, I’m going to stop believing in you,” she told him.

  He shrugged and added “embarrassed” to the day’s list of uncharacteristic expressions. “Jane’s here,” he said.

  “And she found you and Irina on the front porch yelling at each other,” Ren guessed. “And gave you hell for leaving me alone.”

  “Yeah,” Oskar said. “How did you know it was Irina?”

  “I peeked.”

  “She has a new Second—Vanessa Surya. Sally recruited and titaned.”

  “I read the forum posts.”

  “Oh right. Of course. Do you want to meet her?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  “Wasn’t she in Florida? How’d she get here so fast?”

  “Apparently Vanessa had a condo south of Tucson.” Oskar scowled. “I can make her leave.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Kate called in a prescription for Ambien for you. Jane picked it up. You should take one now. I can bring it out here to you, if you want, and avoid Irina.”

  “God, you left Jane in there alone with her?” Ren followed Oskar inside feeling like a guest in his house. Or Irina’s.

  Irina was rummaging in the kitchen, pretending not to see Jane, who sat sentry at the kitchen table. “Ren!” Irina cried, dropping a cookie sheet with a clatter. “You poor girl!”

  “Go away, Irina.”

  Irina stopped like a butterfly frozen in the air. “I’ll make bruschetta.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Irina,” Oskar began.

  Ren cut him off. “I’ll do the bruschetta,” she told Irina. “You make drinks.”

  Neither Irina or Oskar moved.

  “Great!” Jane said.

  “Ren?” Oskar’s face stayed expressionless.

  “Mojitos?” Irina suggested.

  The last time Irina had made drinks, she’d poisoned Ren’s. Ren had mostly blamed Celeste, but hadn’t been ready to forgive Irina until now. “Let’s have gin and tonics,” she decided.

  “Great!” Jane said again.

  Irina had been an Incrementalist for longer than anyone alive except Ramon, and if Phil needed that kind of deep expertise, Ren wasn’t going to let her own shallow past get in the way. Besides, Irina would fight Oskar just on principle, and Ren knew the one thing that Phil distrusted most was having any one Incrementalist in charge.

  * * *

  It galls me to say it, but Ren was right about Irina. I ended up glad to have her there. And not just because we started seeing each other in the aftermath.

  —O

  * * *

  JUNE, 1856

  “THE SECOND’S NAME WAS, AH, JIMMY?”

  I arrived in June, and they were already rebuilding from the attack of May. They’d cleared the rubble from what had been the hotel, and new printing presses had arrived to replace the ones the border ruffians had destroyed. I pitched in, because Lawrence, Kansas, had no good way for a card player to make a living. It was a dusty town, and everything felt temporary—the buildings, the streets, the people. The one brick building had been the hotel. When the wind came up, it seemed like everything might blow away—and, in fact, the roofs of some of the older, grass-thatched huts did just that, though they were quickly re-thatched.

  We hauled wood and stone, sometimes a long way. After hours of sweat, stopping for a drink of water felt like complete self-indulgence. The Emigrant Aid Company sent us hammers and nails from back East; that helped.

  At night I’d take a turn at guard duty. I had my Sharp’s. Most of them had poor muskets that reminded me of the one I could hardly shoot during the Revolutionary War. I’ve been a soldier—a bad one—several times, but this was one of the few times I felt like, if I had to, I could aim and shoot—we were protecting our town, and we didn’t know if or when the ruffians would be back to burn us out, or worse. I thought about going back to Massachusetts and meddling with Thayer and Lawrence to send us more arms and ammunition, but it turned out I didn’t need to.

  I did a bit of meddling here and there around the town; I made sure our version of the truth was printed in the newspapers. To be fair, the editors, particularly George Brown of the Herald of Freedom, probably didn’t need much meddling.

  They didn’t attack again, though. And we rebuilt Lawrence.

  FIVE

  Gallivanting through the Deep

  Kate knew her Garden smelled of new felt, but every blessed time she thought, “wet dog.”

  Wet dog and fleas.

  Felting is nicer than it smells, but the fleas were smallpox, actually, and itched like the dickens until she scratched them. Then they burned. Kate didn’t much care for her sense triggers.

  But she loved her Garden cottage. She opened her eyes, and walked through its cozy sitting room, touching chair backs, passing rows and rows of yarn. Oskar had seeded his memory of Phil’s death as a curl of orange rind left in the drained café glass of a heavy drinker on the Rue de Guerre. Kate opened her bead box and found it as a polished but asymmetric undrilled chunk of amber. She fashioned a simple wire wrap, and put it on.

  Unlike her own memories, which she could put on and relive, Oskar’s she could only wear and remember. Donning the amber, she knew the heat of Tucson, but didn’t feel its warmth. She knew there were three women in Ren’s house, and that Oskar was livid about something. The police, most likely. That wouldn’t create problems for Ren, so Kate dilated on the other women, and knew Ren was in shock, and Irina—beautiful and young again in her latest Second—was still a pain in the behind, and there, getting in Oskar’s way. Good. She recognized Jane from Ren’s in-progress meddlework posts, and knew from Oskar’s seed that the pretty Wiccan had been good with Ren, and that Oskar thought Jane would be a good recruit for Phil’s Second.

  That would never do.

  Kate took off the bead, and held it up to the sunshine streaming through her big bay window. The stone caught the light and knifed an orange glint of fire across her cozy studio. Oskar, bless him, was ferocious and smart and pathologically farsighted. He could never see a person, only people. He’d thought to wonder how Irina got to Ren’s so quickly, but not why she’d want to. He’d noticed Jane’s altruism, but not how attracted she was to him. Kate made a note on an index card and filed the bead with the rest of her amber, satisfied she’d done the right thing in writing the Ambien scrip. Oskar would try to do right by Ren, but he’d only make a muddle of it. Jimmy and Ramon and Irina—all of Salt—would get involved but not one of them, old and experienced as they were, knew half what Kate did about love. And Ren would have enough to deal with, what with the grief and the politics of Phil’s death.

  * * *

  Since everybody’s been talking about Salt, I should explain. It’s an informal group that consists of the five longest-enduring personalities—in other words, the five oldest of us. We have no power, no authority, except that we tend to be listened to by those who are newer at this whole immortality thing. I don’t know where the term “Salt” came from. It goes back so many thousands of years that it would take days or probably weeks in the Garden sifting through old memories to find out, and I just don’t care enough to bother.

  —Oskar

  * * *

  Kate opened her eyes and blinked at the ball pit. Her kids were invisible, buried under plastic balls, but Kate knew her babies were in there with the germs and lost socks the same way she knew what Ren needed.

  She stood up, yawned, and collected her magazine, the stuffed bunny, and an extra shoe. Kate had two husbands because she couldn’t lie. When she was seven, she had stolen a Wilbur’s candy bar from her sister’s Christmas stocking, and chocolate hadn’t tasted good to her since. But she wo
uld lie on the forum and steal from the Garden to get Ren the right Second for Phil. Kate had risked her life, taken the spike, and become an Incrementalist because she loved people—not in groups or factions or tribes, but one by one. She cared about Ren, not Salt, and if that got her in trouble, well, let it.

  * * *

  In the bathroom, Ren picked up the ancient bathrobe of Phil’s that he had long since ceded to her and put it on over her clothes. It made her feel like she’d swallowed a hole and wrapped herself in its packaging paper. She took it off and folded the faded, aged-fragile cotton into a warm little rectangle too small to staunch the emptiness. She hid it behind the spare towels on a shelf and braced herself to be around people.

  Ren went back into the living room, and dutifully swallowed the pill Jane gave her. “Oskar’s on the phone with Alexander,” Irina told her. “He’s finding out what the police know, and asking questions about tradecraft.”

  * * *

  It was an instructive conversation. Alexander is our intel expert and talking to him convinced me that I’d been right about the police being part of the problem. They almost always are, but this time more so than even I or Alexander could have known.

  —O

  * * *

  “Okay,” Ren said. “What else needs to be done?”

  “You don’t have to do anything,” Jane said.

  “I want to.”

  “Good.” Irina squinted at Jane, evaluating her, although Ren wasn’t sure for what. “We have things that need doing.” Irina stood up. “How kind of you to drive Ren’s car back,” she told Jane. “Did you say your husband was on his way to get you?”

  “No. I said he drove our car home.”

  Irina sucked at her gin and tonic, and Ren marveled that she’d thought to bring not just limes, but straws. “How very kind of you,” Irina said. “I’ll call you a cab.”

  “Oskar said he’d run me home once Ren went to bed.”

  “No, I’ll take you.” Irina and Jane eyed each other like chess players. “Oskar is staying with Ren, and your house is on my way.”

  Jane opened her mouth, but Oskar walked into the living room, moving too quickly for a space its size. “There is no more unimaginative breed of reactionary rule-followers than police detectives. They see what they want to and treat any attempt to widen their perspective as an assault on their eyesight. They defend property from the property-less and can’t imagine a world in which a kid growing up on the Southside with a working mom and no dad, lousy food and a worse education might be the victim rather than the perp.” He glared at Irina. “They’re saying Phil got caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting. It was a couple of high school kids. Exactly the demographic Jared Taylor recruits.”

  “Oskar?” Jane stood up. “Why don’t you come help me rustle us up a drink?”

  “Oh god, Jane,” Ren said. “I’m sorry. I thought you didn’t want one.”

  “I didn’t offer,” Irina said. “I thought she was leaving. We have things to discuss among ourselves.”

  “Phil’s an idiot,” Oskar said. “But nobody gets shot three times by accident. I grazed the police report. The shooting was surgical. No way Phil was some innocent bystander.”

  “Oskar.” The steel in Jane’s voice got his attention.

  “Irina, for god’s sake, would you please have the decency to get Jane a drink?” Oskar growled.

  “I’ll take a beer, thanks, Irina,” Jane said sweetly.

  Irina didn’t move, which Jane ignored and Oskar failed to notice. “See if Phil has any scotch, would you?” he added.

  “We do,” Ren said. “I’ll get it.”

  Ren went into the kitchen. Being around people was starting to feel like doing stupid planks in stupid yoga. Irina had left the tonic out, so Ren put it back in the fridge and wiped up the juice where Irina had sliced limes on the counter.

  “You can’t ask her about that now!” Jane scolded Oskar in the other room.

  Ren managed not to cry over the empty six-pack carton and the memory of eating pizza, watching Argo, and sharing the last beer with Phil because he wanted one more slice, and she was already a little tipsy.

  The front door slammed.

  Ren poured scotch and carried the drinks back into the living room. She handed Jane a bottle. “It’s hard cider,” she said. “We’re out of beer.”

  “Oskar stepped outside,” Irina explained.

  “I’ll go get him.” Jane put her cider by Oskar’s scotch glass and went out.

  “Eager little thing, isn’t she?” Irina’s habitual tartness sounded somehow more acid coming out of her new Second’s sweet face.

  “You’re jealous of Jane?” Ren asked. Irina had been nearly seventy when they first met, and Ren wasn’t sure youth suited her. She wondered if it would be that way with Phil.

  “She’s in the way,” Irina said. “We have work to do: Phil’s dust ritual, Chuck’s funeral, who to have recruit and titan Phil’s new Second.”

  “Me,” Ren said. “I want to titan.”

  Irina sucked on her straw.

  “Oskar won’t want me to.”

  Irina squinted owlishly at Ren. “Oskar is not in charge. Also, we need to find out who really shot Phil, in case the rest of us—and you particularly—are in danger.”

  Ren yawned. “Why would we be? Celeste was right about Phil. He leaves. But he comes back. He has to. I made a spiral. Without him—”

  “A spiral?” Irina said, but the Ambien was creeping over Ren like the thunder blanket they’d bought for Susi.

  “Where’s the wolf?” she asked Irina. “My dog.”

  “I put it in the guest room.”

  “Get him?”

  “Why don’t you go on to bed, Ren dear?”

  “Why don’t you fuck off, Irina love?”

  “Or you can just curl up here on the sofa.”

  Ren nodded. She wasn’t sure she had a choice about sleeping on the sofa. But Oskar came in and scooped her up. He carried her out of the living room in arms that were alive and encompassing. Her head fell against his chest and her eyes focused precisely on a single blond hair at the base of his throat. He smelled masculine and competent and safe. Nothing about Oskar was safe.

  Ren wanted to ask him to stay holding on to her, but her breathing was already too deep and rhythmic to disrupt by talking. Susi barked and whined, jostling Ren’s dangling foot with his head. Ren understood Oskar had carried her into the guest bedroom, not the one she and Phil shared, and a deeper breath, almost a sigh, sank through her. Oskar sat on the bed and eased her onto it.

  “I’ll undress her.” Irina always had the most terrible voices.

  “She’s wearing yoga pants,” Jane said. “They’re practically pajamas.”

  Ren nodded her agreement, grateful again for Jane’s practical calm to offset the Incrementalists’ intensity. Ren wondered how Jane managed it, staying level amid upheaval.

  The moment Oskar let her go, Ren wanted him back. He was principled enough to sleep next to her and not let it complicate anything, but she was principled enough not to ask it of him. Not that she could talk. Susi jumped up on the mattress next to her, his weight making the bed jiggle and Ren tremble. She gave the dog a bleary whistle and he nuzzled her face in that “let’s play!” way he did when Phil came home.

  “That dog will disrupt her sleep,” Irina said. “She needs to rest.”

  “Go away, Irina,” Oskar said, and they all left. Or Ren did.

  * * *

  They left Ren sleeping, and Oskar followed Irina and Jane down the hall and through the kitchen He stopped to look for something to eat and wondered how long it would take to find Ren’s seeds for Jane. Had she put pointers to them in the forum? He didn’t think so. Oskar didn’t actually want to meddle with Jane—at least not yet—but it would be nice to know something about her.

  Of course, they could have a conversation, and he could learn about her that way, just like normal people. Oskar got himself some bruschetta
and walked into the living room to see that Irina had apparently come to the same conclusion, and was acting on it. She was talking, and Jane was nodding, but looking wary. Her body language said she wasn’t at all certain about this Irina person. Irina was mirroring, and breath-matching, using her eyes and mouth and every other trick there is to gain the trust of a Focus when you have no switches.

  “Irina,” Oskar said, “let’s talk.” He took her arm to let her know that he would fucking drag her with him if he had to. He could see her considering it, weighing the effect it would have on Jane’s trust in her, and in him; then she got to her feet.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll be back in a moment, Jane.”

  Jane didn’t answer.

  Oskar led Irina out the front door.

  “What’s on your mind?” she said.

  “You need to leave.”

  “That ‘go away’ thing is going to get boring fast,” she said. “Maybe it would be more productive to concentrate on how we can work together to help Ren.”

  “She doesn’t want your help. And I don’t want to work together. Why do you get to make the decisions without caring what anyone else thinks?”

  She laughed. “Is that really coming from your mouth, Oskar? From yours?”

  “Please go fuck yourself. Do you really think Ren wants you around right now?”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “You almost killed her.”

  “So? Phil actually killed me. Am I bearing a grudge?”

  “Probably.”

  “I am not. I’m here for Ren. It’s not where I’d choose to be. I didn’t want to drop everything I was doing and go shopping, but has anybody else thought to stop for supplies? I didn’t particularly want everyone knowing I have a place in Tucson. It’s awkward. And no one likes being hated, Oskar. But none of that matters right now. Ren does.”