Not expected. I felt my fifth stomach clench. “Pardon?”
“There’s work remaining.” Paul chuckled. “And it won’t get done any faster with you here to pant down Duggs’ neck.”
Duggs Pouncey was the best general contractor and restorationist on Botharis. Probably in several systems, but I was prejudiced, having successfully lured her and her crew from the capital to work on our Library. The size of the fee had helped, plus our commitment to the best, but she’d admitted after a few beers to find the challenge of building a name-the-alien–suited structure a refreshing change. As well as our written promise to “when in doubt, let Duggs decide.”
“I never pant,” I objected. Loom over the Human’s capable shoulder, perhaps, but—where was Paul going with this? I settled for a weak, “What’s wrong with shopping?”
“Not a thing. You do realize, Old Blob, that once the Library opens, you and I will be busy. Very busy.”
Obviously.
Paul was never obvious.
“Yes,” I agreed warily. “What’s wrong with busy? We want the Library to be a success.”
“And it will be. So first, before we’re too busy, you and I are going to take a holiday. A fabulous holiday.”
I squinted at him. Too long in the sun, perhaps? “I remember Urgia Prime’s station.” Down to the numbers of rivets in its adequate, if not stellar, biological accommodations. “Meeting there with Diales—even with shopping—is not what I’d call a holiday.”
Let alone “fabulous.”
Paul’s expression was suspiciously innocent. “Did I say we were going to the station, Old Blob?”
Teasing meant he’d a secret to reveal. Something he believed I’d like, which was good.
That said, my friend wasn’t infallible. I continued to be seriously ambivalent about the existence of his Group, whose members knew all about me though I’d yet to meet all of them. Then there’d been that incident on the way to Prumbin. Oh, wait, that had been my fault.
To be safe, I glowered, mouth closed.
With a smile, Paul leaned back, his hands locked around one knee. Waiting.
That game. First to speak lost and, as always, I was at a serious disadvantage. He’d more patience than anyone I knew. According to Ersh? I’d none at all.
I lasted two of his breaths. “Where are we going?” I blurted.
“Kateen.”
“Kat—?” I grabbed my loosening lower jaw in both hands and pushed it back into place.
Kateen? Merely the most exclusive portcity on Urgia Prime itself, home to its magnificent Embassy Row—not to mention the best shops this end of the Commonwealth.
More importantly, if memory served me, as it always did?
“You can’t mean this ‘fabulous’ holiday will be during the 300th Festival of Funchess the Unrestrained and Gloriously Joyful?”
While the poetical Urgians were prone to over-titling, in this instance no one blamed them. Funchess was their deity of interactive street theater. All were welcome to participate, and a truly ridiculous number did, swamping facilities from orbital docks to catering.
It was reputed Kateen, however briefly, would contain more individuals than any other comparable bit of landscape in this section of space—a slight exaggeration, as Rands could, as the expression goes, “pack them in” when it came time to celebrate familial ascension and anyone who’d seen a Panacian Spring Emergence would laugh—but there could be no doubt Kateen would host the greatest variety of species seen together at once.
For the festival, they would all come.
I calmed my now-ready-to-explode fifth stomach with an effort. This couldn’t be Paul’s secret. “Of course, it’s not the Festival of Funchess,” said with my bravest expression and hardly a quiver in my voice. “Passages sell out years in advance.” With doubtless some ending up as overpriced items of trade on various black markets—not, in any way, something I wanted Paul to risk.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he replied—oh, so serious. “Kateen was where Diales proposed we meet. I guess we’ll have to make do with the station.”
“It has shopping,” I agreed in a very small voice.
Paul’s face contorted with effort, then he gave up and laughed, slapping me again on the thigh. “Don’t ask me how Diales is getting there, Fangface, but Largas Pride has a contracted delivery for the festival. Rudy’s going to pick us up on his way. We’re going!”
Collusion of the highest order, I realized with renewed joy. Undoubtedly, the capable Rudy Lefebvre, former patroller turned spy turned freighter captain, Paul’s cousin and our good friend, had insisted on attending the meeting with the disreputable Diales. Something in me relaxed.
Letting the rest grow excited. The Festival of Funchess was one I’d seen only through the memories of my web-kin, Ansky. None of the others had her love of crowds. Or of sex, which explained my existence, but that wasn’t the point.
“Every kind will be there,” I gushed joyfully. Representatives of every sentient species in this part of space capable of existing on Urgia Prime, together at a party Ersh had emphatically refused to let me attend. I curled my lip to expose not one, but both tusks. “Fabulous!”
Paul looked pleased. “It’ll be the perfect spot for our holiday, Old Blob.”
That a city turned stage also made the perfect cover for our little clandestine meeting was simply a bonus.
Proving what little either of us knew of Kateen.
* * *
The block around this end of Kateen’s Embassy Row boasted fifteen caf shops, a dozen or so restaurants almost affordable on a junior political assistant’s salary—plus the hundred that weren’t—and drop-by stalls lining any walkway without prohibits. The drop-bys’ fare was cheap and varied to suit a clientele that rivaled the shipcity for diversity, and the flimsy eateries showed up in time for breakfast, breaks, and lunch, in fair weather.
Which this wasn’t and hadn’t been for days. The Urgians wanted a sparkling city for their festival; to a species who colored sunsets to suit tourists and elevated climate control to an art, nature was the obvious choice for a thorough cleansing.
Evan Gooseberry sighed and hunched under his auto-brella. Sheets of rain chased one another across the cobblestones. What bureaucratic misstep put cobblestones in the one district where foot traffic included those whose feet varied from hooves to wide suckers continued to baffle—
Lightning flashed. Blinded, Evan focused urgently on his breathing, moving his diaphragm in and out, in and out, fingers clenched on the staff of his ’brella. So, when the THUNDERclap arrived, vibrating every bone in his body, he gave a startled grunt, rather than the usual full-out scream.
Earned dessert, that did. Before he could be tested again, Evan hurried through the rain. Ruthie’s Caf was just ahead and served delicious pie. He’d reward himself with a piece. Or maybe a scone.
He stopped in his tracks, squinting through the drops. It couldn’t be.
It was.
Another figure was entering Ruthie’s, torso swathed in a too-familiar shiny pink raincoat, long elegant limbs tiptapping over the cobbles like fingers drumming on a plate.
SPIDER!
Evan spun on his heel, breathing in, breathing out.
The shakes were fine. Those he could handle. He refused to vomit, not again or here, and definitely not out in the open. The thing was surely inside the caf by now.
It’d be out again in an instant, scurrying along the road with terrifying unpredictability—
Making Ruthie’s another place he couldn’t go.
Damn.
Couldn’t go yet. The rephrasing was important. He’d achieved so much these past twenty weeks. Thunder banged along the buildings, rattling windows. Once, he’d have run in terror. This time, he barely flinched. He’d made progress—which was why he was here, after all, servin
g in the Commonwealth’s embassy on Urgia Prime, in this city. You couldn’t avoid the weather and you couldn’t avoid the Urgians, with their boneless bodies and arms like so many snakes.
Habituation was the only way. And worked, Evan reminded himself, however tedious the wait. He was doing well. Better than expected, really. He was comfortable interacting with Urgians, so long as he didn’t have to touch an arm—
Until this. He wasn’t ready, in any sense, for an added challenge. By all he’d checked and researched, he should have been able to avoid the arachnoid Popeakans, who were shy and reclusive and stayed within their own embassy.
Except for this one, intent on contaminating every eatery in the city until there was no place left safe to enter—
Gorge rose in his throat and Evan swallowed. Like any other alien on Embassy Row, the being was about ril’s business. Ril was the pronoun for undeclared gender, Popeakans having five of increasing self-absorption, and clearly the polite default when encountering one swathed in a pink raincoat.
If not doing one’s utmost to prevent such encounters. When he’d learned how close the Popeakan Embassy was to theirs, he’d vomited, quietly, in the office restroom.
—yet, Evan told himself, walking away.
An art, the walk of Evan Gooseberry, Junior Political Assistant, composed of precise and thoughtful steps, with nary a slip and never an intrusion into another being’s space. From his point of view, passersby were more concerned with their own footing on the cobbles and the tendency of larger beings to, deliberately or not, run over those smaller. He took quiet satisfaction in his seeming invisibility.
An invisibility solely in his mind, for the walk of Evan Gooseberry had done more to advance Human diplomacy among the contrary species of Embassy Row than any promises or proposals by his superiors, the Commonwealth—and humanity—being recent arrivals in this well-settled and highly civilized portion of space.
Nor were any of his steps wasted. Evan knew to a heartbeat how far he could wander from the modest if sturdy building housing the Human contingent on Kateen and make it back to his workstation in ample time.
A quarter of his allotted break over meant he was down to Caf o’Borden. Thunder rumbled, and Evan brightened. Buttered sweet roll, it was.
* * *
There was something liberating about a lack of calcification. I twisted myself into a second knot and giggled.
“You look ridiculous.”
At the rich sound of that voice, I condensed into a startled oblong, arms wrapped around my middle, then as quickly expanded into something more dignified. For an Urgian. An admittedly uinmale-uinfemale morph Urgian, being too young for an obvious gender combination to show through my fine scales.
“You could knock,” I countered, fighting the urge to add a rhyming “or crawl under a rock” and face Skalet’s surely unpleasant reaction. My Urgianself was willing to risk it, couplets being that species’ response to emotional conflict, but, Ersh knew, the next step could be a full limerick and my web-kin lacked a sense of humor in any form.
Instead, I curled my arms around the nearest duras plants—several pots in every room—cycled hastily through web-form to assimilate their living mass in more me, then cycled into a sturdier self. As Esolesy-ki the Lishcyn, I outmassed the Human version of Skalet, even if I was in no other way remotely as intimidating.
Human might not be applicable to her Kraalself in the distant future, not if the Confederacy continued on its isolated path. A society as wildly distinct from the rest of the species as possible while operating the same space-capable technologies, the Kraal were, in Ersh terms, inbred and doomed.
Skalet, to everyone’s dismay, fit right in. Her Kraalself, S’kal-ru, was tall, whipcord-thin, and bore the red-and black-tattoos of affiliation on both cheeks. On her person were secreted more weapons than you’d think necessary to visit family, but I’d never argue.
“I looked fine,” I asserted in my new, deeper voice.
My web-kin lifted an eloquent brow as she took a seat. “That Human told—”
“Paul.”
After the slightest hesitation, Skalet dipped her bald head in acknowledgment. “Paul told me where you’re going. Why be Urgian? You’ll be at disadvantage—but wait.” Her other eyebrow rose. “Don’t tell me you plan to participate in their street play-acting.”
Then I wouldn’t, I thought rather smugly. “Visiting Urgians get priority accommodations,” I told her, not that that had anything to do with my form choice. The Largas Pride was crammed to capacity. My Lishcynself—
“Then again, this version of you does take up an extra seat,” Skalet observed with icy perception. “Let me guess, Youngest. You’re going in the luggage.”
Less fudge, I told myself. “I’m going in the form I choose,” I replied, scales swelling in offense. That my Urgianself could fit neatly in Paul’s bag with room for snacks was beside the point. We’d pick up extra bags and shop after the festival. He’d promised. Not that our plans ever worked as expected, a thought I also kept to myself, having a more pressing concern. “Are you coming with us?” My dismay at the prospect was, I hoped, not obvious.
While I appreciated my web-kin’s many attributes, the ones that didn’t involve poisons or other means of subtle, sudden death, Skalet’s presence would make enjoying the street theater—impossible, that was what it would be. She loathed crowds, especially ones having a good time, and distrusted those who sought entertainment outside of needful training exercises. As for a holiday, a true holiday, because Paul insisted I not pack pamphlets? Not in her—or any Kraal’s—vocabulary.
Tattoos collided in a scowl. “What a ridiculous notion, Youngest. Someone must protect our assets while you and Paul are gone.”
Protect them, or abscond with them? The former, I decided, was more likely. Skalet professed herself satisfied thus far with the Library’s progress; a shockingly uncharacteristic state sure to change once the doors opened to strangers and she discovered we’d no intention of requiring extensive background checks, scans, or even to ask politely for an ident.
Revelations for another time—ideally when I wasn’t home or had ears. “Thank you,” I said diplomatically. “Is there any—”
“Yes. Instruct the Pouncey Human to take my orders.”
That wasn’t going to happen, and we all knew it. Duggs’ opinion of Skalet—suffice to say she’d expanded my knowledge of Botharan Human profanity, much of it involving the local livestock species.
“You can use my room while you’re here,” I offered instead. The Ragem family farmhouse wasn’t large, but it was the only building other than the barn or Library, and the latter was full of contractors and tradesbeings. My room was the former parlor, Paul and I agreeing it best not to challenge stairs with my Lishcynself.
Plus the kitchen was next door.
A dismissive glance. “I’ve a ship, Youngest.”
Of course she did, being a Kraal Courier and entitled by her affiliation to the leading Houses of the Confederacy to travel when and where she saw fit, commanding any resources she required.
She wasn’t entitled to park in orbit over the Library with anything that would make the locals justifiably anxious, such as a battle cruiser or dreadnought. Or, for that matter, a fleet. Botharis wasn’t under direct Kraal rule. That it had been, regularly, had more to do with history than special value. Anything—be it a knife or planet—once claimed by a Kraal House became a preferred target for others. They weren’t the sanest branch of humanity.
Just the one favored by my web-kin. “You promised to be inconspicuous.”
“I promised no such thing.” Teeth glinted in what wasn’t a smile. “Don’t fuss, Youngest. Leave politics to me and go plug your Paul’s security leak.”
I regarded her for a long moment, then nodded. “I will,” I said quietly. “And if things aren’t as they should be when we come
back—if you’ve played your politics, Skalet—I’ll share every detail with you. Every. Detail.”
She actually blanched. It gave me no pleasure to threaten her. Skalet, whether she’d admit it or not, trusted me to sort what we both knew she’d find intolerable from what I shared with her. I risked that trust, behaving like Ersh.
But I wouldn’t risk this world—or the Library—either.
* * *
“You do know they’re the least offensive beings in the universe. Gems. We should all be more like them.”
Evan Gooseberry was not a person to roll his eyes at another, nor to wish ill of anyone, but after fifteen minutes of this and similar statements, he thought about eye rolling and came close, in a weak moment, to contemplating how Senior Political Officer Simone Arygle Feen would look in a clown suit. She’d the traditional girth, a prominent nose and chin sandwiching thin lips, topped off by immense shaggy eyebrows that gave her frequent scowls devastating impact.
Hoping to forestall one, Evan replied, “Yes, Polit Feen.” Again.
The curious behavior of the Pink Popeakan had been observed by everyone in the embassy, as everyone went out to eat and not even the most jaded staffer could miss either the shiny pink raincoat or ril’s skittering around inside random restaurants without pausing to order or eat. Had not Popeakans been “the least offensive beings in the universe,” there would have been complaints—on Urgia, posted as a droll limerick.
As for being “more like them?” Nothing would get done, he thought. The Popeakans had leased and occupied one of the basic structures provided by the Urgians on Embassy Row and hadn’t—other than the Pink Popeakan—been seen outside since. Nor had they done anything to personalize the exterior, leaving it the Urgians to supply a plaque inscribed with lengthy and highly unlikely information.
Unlike the Grigari, who’d musicians playing at all hours and invited any and all to join in, or even their embassy, with its added Urgian-style patio complete with warm showers on command for those who might have thought Humans didn’t know how to blend—
The Only Thing to Fear Page 2