“We think of our clients first, it is true, Gentle Hom,” the officer agreed, tentacles spread in a pleased ring around his small mouth. “We Heerii are the very best—”
A discontented rumble from the Brill. “This jabber wastes my time. BAH!”
Like an echo, a chair toppled in the distance as a single Drapsk rolled into tight ball of white, done with the meeting. Eopari. The so-not-helpful Drapsk response to stress.
The captain stiffened. “We decide the use of time, not you,” with unDrapsk-like sharpness.
“It is also true, my good Drapsk,” Morgan pressed, “that no trade ends until delivery is made and payment exchanged.” He kept it calm, composed. “When you hear my offer—”
“‘Offer’?!” Manouya interrupted again. “This Human lies to you. Look at him. Shipcity dregs with nothing but the rags on his back.” His voice dropped an ominous octave, rattling the table. “My business is the only one worth your consideration. Send them and their scrap away. Then we will discuss what I want.”
“We’re all friends here,” Terk advised him, his tone like ice.
“I am ‘friends’ with no Human.”
The enforcer leaned forward, the angles of his face harsh. “That so?”
Morgan’s boot found those bare, orange-painted toes and pressed, not gently. There was a card to play yet on the board. Paying no attention to Terk’s glare—or the Brill’s—he spoke to Heevertup. “I do not come empty-handed,” stated with the certainty provided by Bowman’s unlimited Travel Voucher, sewn inside his coveralls; perhaps not the use she’d anticipated, but if it retrieved the crystals? No question she’d honor it. “Let’s discuss terms, good Drapsk. If you remember me at all, Captain, you know my word can be trusted.”
“We could never forget. Jason Morgan. The Human Mystic One.” The captain stretched out a hand. Morgan met it with his, startled when the rest of the Heerii, except for one white ball, rose to their feet. “Beloved of She Who Brought Drapskii to su-gripstsa.”
As if they’d been waiting for that signal, the Drapsk—all of them—rushed to the table with a drumming of little feet. They pressed to get as close to him as they could, and when Drapsk pressed, others gave way, including Terk and the Brill.
Morgan endured the crowding, mouth firmly closed as rosy tentacles patted his cheeks and jaw, and stroked his lips. Tasting what they offered would be the Human version of lar-gripstsa; he’d rather not become an honorary Heerii at this or any moment.
More Drapsk and more, their antennae dipped until the Human found himself engulfed in blue-green warmth. He didn’t dare move: the plumes were fragile as well as exquisitely sensitive.
All at once, in shattering unison, they spoke.
“We grieve with you.”
He’d dreaded telling the Drapsk about Sira.
Why had he thought they wouldn’t already know?
Interlude
Plexis
PLEXIS SECURITY was responsible for the thousands of sapients who lived and worked on the immense station, as well as the multitudes who came and went. Responsible in the sense that none of those watched by security better mess with station operations—from safety protocols to the collection of air tax—nor do anything to impede the ample flow of business.
Plexis being, above all, a living entity of its own, as fragile as only a metal-and-plas egg in vacuum could be. The station would choke and die if starved. First, though, would come riot and panic. Without the dedicated beings of Plexis security, dressed in however much sturdy gray fabric as their particular body form could accommodate, anarchy was a dropped parcel away.
These were not thoughts Tayno Boormataa’kk entertained as he crouched anxiously in the waiting area assigned to “those we haven’t arrested yet.” The decor and fixtures were pleasing, and a counter displayed a variety of beverages informatively labeled regarding their potential addictive or poisonous nature depending on species.
On Plexis, individuals were responsible for their own failures in judgment.
He was, Tayno worried, here for such a reason. Not that he knew which of his failures had attracted this unwelcome summons—
A door opened. There were two in this room. One, the exit, had locked behind him. This was the unfortunate other door. “Hom Huido.” The security guard beckoned. “This way, please.”
His “uncle” considered the inability of most other species to tell them apart as the only reason to let a second Carasian male in his territory live, it being convenient and entertaining to have a stand-in for his magnificent self deal with station bureaucracy and tedious customers.
Most of the time, Tayno was delighted to oblige.
Not this time, but even had he wanted to try, there was no arguing with security. He rose. “What’s this about?” As Huido, after all, he should be daring.
“The deputy inspector will explain.” The guard—a nondescript Human-ish creature with a large weapon at his/her hip—regarded Tayno’s girth, then hit a control to widen the door, stepping aside.
Courtesy was promising, Tayno thought hopefully. The last time he’d had to turn sideways and squeeze through, leaving significant marks on his beautiful carapace. And, to be honest, the doorframe.
The last time, he’d been interrogated by that unpleasant Inspector Wallace. Not a problem today. Wallace had been encouraged, rumor had it, to take a post on Kimmcle, a world of regrettable reputation. Judging by the glee with which that rumor spread, others hadn’t enjoyed Wallace either.
“In here, Hom Huido.”
As Tayno entered what he was relieved to find a simple office, he made sure his eyestalks were erect, eyes oriented ahead. To a Carasian, the display was aggressive, almost rude, but Huido had assured him—often—that he tended to slink as if about to hide as a rock and that wouldn’t do, not to pass as his mighty self.
When Tayno saw the image displayed on the wall-sized screen behind the desk, he couldn’t help but slink a little, withdrawing his eyestalks until only a row of shiny black beads showed along the gap in his head disks. Even he could tell it was Mathis Dewley. His new Human friend.
“I’m Deputy Inspector Jynet, Hom Huido. Thank you for coming.”
“I didn’t have to?” Tayno blurted.
“Of course not. You’re an upstanding citizen of Plexis—and a busy one, with the work being done on your valued establishment. I appreciate your time.”
Tayno dared unslink a trifle, a dozen eyes sliding back into the open. “I am busy,” he agreed. “Very busy.”
“Indeed.” The Deputy Inspector of Plexis Security was an Eima. Though a theta-class humanoid, her cheeks were covered by loose dewflaps hanging from eye socket to jaw edge. It gave Eimae what Lones called a doleful look, but to Tayno, Jynet’s face bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the splayed lobes of a crushed atar, he once having leaned—accidentally—on a bowl of the expensive fruits.
For which Huido had made him pay.
The resemblance grew uncanny as her flaps turned shiny green. “Then I won’t delay,” Jynet continued. “Can you identify this individual, Hom Huido?”
It didn’t appear a trick question. “Yes. That’s Mathis Dewley. A worker at the restaurant. Human,” he added helpfully.
She made a note. What had he said? It worried him when they made notes.
“When did you last see Mathis Dewley?”
“It wasn’t yesterday,” he said with confidence. She waited, pen poised. Not the right answer, then. It had been a while. He twitched a handling claw as he counted breakfasts to himself, or more precisely, breakfasts with the Turrneds, who served a delicious syrup every five days he did his utmost not to miss. “Five syrup—I mean twenty-five station days. Is there a problem? I hope there isn’t a problem.” He fought the urge to crouch. “That was the first time I saw him, too. Twenty-five days.”
Another note was made. “I can
’t say, Hom Huido. But if you see Hom Dewley again, please inform security at once.”
That was all? Tayno expanded with relief. “I will,” he promised. “I’m always glad to assist. Being an upstanding citizen,” he added, in case she’d forgotten.
Another flash of color below her eye sockets. He began to fear it indicated amusement. Ever-so-slowly, he backed toward the door.
“There is one other matter I wish to bring to your attention.”
He stopped.
The deputy inspector held out what looked like a piece of plas. The sort that had words on it. “Take it,” she told him, when he didn’t move.
Tayno extended a handling claw, seizing the thing gingerly between the tips. “What’s this?”
“It’s an apartment.”
His eyestalks collided trying to examine the plas. “It is?”
That color again. “Your pardon. Let me explain. This is the address and access code for an apartment rented under the name Jason Morgan. Your friend, I believe?”
He spared three eyes to stare at her. What would Huido say? “More than friend,” he replied, doing his utmost to add a firm boom to his voice. “My blood brother!”
“Excellent. Then you’ll assume the lease. The terms are there,” she pointed to the plas hanging from his clawtips. “It’s in arrears, but my colleagues assure me the Claws & Jaws regularly covers Morgan’s debts.”
Debts. Tayno knew all about those. Debt was why most of his pay vanished, going to cover some completely coincidental damage to the plumbing—Huido couldn’t expect him to put the rest toward this apartment?
He could and would. There was another source of funds, but— “We aren’t open yet,” Tayno protested weakly.
“We understand the situation, Hom Huido, and have no wish to add to your burden.”
That sounded good.
“I’ll take your guarantee to pay in full two station days after you reopen,” the deputy inspector finished. “The going interest rate will apply, of course.”
That didn’t. “Of course,” he echoed weakly, then realized the rest of it. They’d wait to be paid. Tayno almost shook with relief. They’d wait!
All he’d need was for Huido to return by then.
And to be, the Carasian decided, well away from Plexis before his “uncle” saw the bill.
It wouldn’t be so bad, Tayno consoled himself as he made his way home along the concourse. Others made way for him; some hastily, a preoccupied Carasian akin to a walking avalanche.
Yes, he’d planned to build a new pool—his own pool—but to be realistic, his new word, what was to stop Huido from trying to take his wives?
The wives he didn’t have yet.
No, he was better to go. Start a new business, in a new place.
He paused outside the restaurant to admire the refurbished sign. Claws & Jaws: Complete Interspecies Cuisine. Much classier than the neighboring: Skenkran All You Can Eat Chow. Which was in a terrible font, making the word “chow” look more like “claw” which might, come to think of it, be intentional. They were, regrettably, open for business; taxes and fines paid, or the right bribe found.
The Carasian sighed, making a rain-on-plas sound, then brightened. If it were his sign, it could say Tayno’s Fabulous Food. Or Tayno’s Treats. He liked that one. Short and tasty. Wait. “Tayno’s Tasty Treats!”
“Hom Tayno?”
Caught! As he flinched, he belatedly realized the voice came from his right elbow and was familiar. Bending eyestalks, he saw Lones, who’d taken Ansel’s job, caring for the household behind the restaurant. “You aren’t supposed to call me that,” he complained. “Not outside.”
“You need to come inside quickly.” The smaller-than-most Human actually put two hands around a handling claw and tugged. “Now!”
Alarmed, Tayno settled himself on his balloon-feet. “What’s wrong? Is there a problem?” If so, it wasn’t fair, not twice in one day, and he refused to have anything to do with it. Then he had a truly terrible thought. “Tell me Chef The Righteous SeaSea doesn’t want to be paid in advance.” Yesterday, he’d been thrilled to have a chef of such repute apply to the Claws & Jaws. Yes, it had to be a mistake—not that he’d say so. Ever. Why, SeaSea’s desserts were famous! Not that he’d tried one yet.
The point was, he’d hired her on the spot, without asking Huido. Now, with the apartment—
“It’s not about the chef. We’ve a—guest. The workers won’t go into the kitchen until it’s gone.” Lones swung on Tayno’s claw, bracing a foot against another. “Please. You have to come.”
Passersby had noticed. Some were pointing. One hooted. Another cawed loudly.
That was laughter. Yes, no doubt about it, laughter. Huido’s reputation was in danger! Tayno weighed the consequences of that over what might be in the kitchen. If only Hom M’tisri hadn’t taken a vacation—though they’d no work or pay for the Vilix, making it less a vacation than a forced leave-of-absence—but the Vilix had a gift for dealing with awkward guests.
One he must aspire to, if he were to ever have his own establishment.
Besides, how bad, he decided, could the situation be?
“Show me.”
It was worse than he could have imagined. Tayno stalled in the doorway, feeling Lones run into him from behind and utter a muffled string of incomprehensible words.
Where there should be a shiny countertop, featuring a sink and two grills, was a gooey black something, squeezed to fit beneath the ceiling. The pots from above the sink lay strewn over the floor.
Long fibrous arms poured over the counter to join the pots. The tip of one was stuck inside a lid handle; it flexed, making a fretful noise.
Lones snuck under Tayno’s great claw. “I think it’s a Rugheran,” the Human told him. “Just popped out of thin air, like I’ve heard they do.”
Would the shocks never end? “The air is thin?!” Was the station at risk?
“It’s an expression. The air’s fine,” Lones reassured him. “Anyway, the Rugheran’s been talking. Keeps saying one word.”
/~MORGAN~/ the mad creature obliged.
“That’s the one.”
It wasn’t speech so much as a feeling of wind, blowing over his carapace. No, not wind.
Grist. Fear forgotten, or at least pushed aside, Tayno took a hesitant step closer, drawn by what was more than scent but less than full comprehension. All he knew was that this thing, this unlikely mess, had the second most magnificent grist he’d encountered in his lifetime.
After Sira’s.
“Morgan isn’t here,” he told it, sorry to bear that news, for the grist held a tang of NEED as well. “He’s been gone a long time. That’s why I have this, you see,” Tayno waved the plas still in his clawtips, then stopped, realizing the Rugheran might make less sense of it than he had. “How can we help you?”
Another ineffectual tug at his claw.
“What is it?”
“Is that wise?” Lones whispered, his face very pale. “We don’t know what it wants with Hom Morgan.”
/~!~MORGAN~!~/
“No need to shout,” Tayno told it, resisting the urge to slink just a little. “He’s not here and that’s that.” Summoning his courage, he went on. “I can act on his behalf—”
The arm twisted, sending the pot lid flying into a wall.
The kitchen warped . . .
Inside that twist of space, the Rugheran shrank to the size of a pin, then vanished.
A moment Tayno admittedly missed, his head disks firmly shut.
He opened them slowly. Seeing nothing untoward, he gave himself a shake, hoping the ensuing rattle covered the tremble he couldn’t stop. “Well . . . well. Well, then.”
“Hom Tayno.”
He bent an eyestalk to regard Lones, presently hiding behind his claw. “Don’t worry,�
�� he boomed. “It’s gone.”
“I know.” An arm lifted, a hand rose, a finger pointed. “Who’s that?”
His eyestalks converged.
A figure lay among the pots as if dropped there. Paired arms, legs. Human—
No. The flavor of, yes, her grist, betrayed the truth.
Clan.
Snosbor IV
They were no longer Clan, but Destarians. Seven adult pairs.
The first requirement of empire, Wys di Caraat thought, stepping down the ramp. The next spread in front of her: Snosbor IV.
The system itself was nothing special: within the sparsely settled Fringe of the Trade Pact, off most lanes. That of itself was a recommendation for a people who’d soon have no need of starships.
Snosbor IV itself had everything she could ask. When the Omacrons had been among the First, they’d colonized this verdant world, only to be decimated in recent times by a sequence of plagues. Abandoned by their kind, a remnant population had managed to survive.
Say rather, a pliable workforce. No more would they need to acquire Human telepaths, with their vulnerable minds; that path had led the Clan to disaster. The Destarians would be more prudent.
Wys smiled. Besides, according to the Scats, Humans might become hard to find.
She waited as the group assembled to greet the ship settled into their tasks. Most were servitors, Omacrons mind-wiped into a biddable state, who went without a word to assist with the cargo the Scats had put outside. Scats, she’d discovered, would go to significant effort to avoid Omacrons, charging more for landing on this world. Aliens.
Two were her people, faithful from the start: Lyta di Kessa’at and her Chosen, Odar. The loss of their pregnant granddaughter, Ruti di Bowart, had been a bitter blow, her offspring carrying as it did at least a trace of Sarc lineage. The pair bowed deeply, shields lowered in respect to her greater Power, unmoving until she gestured acceptance.
To Guard Against the Dark Page 9