Skeen's Search

by Clayton, Jo;

  Timka wandered around the roads and slideways that wound through this bubble that was one in a necklace of bubbles about a greenish sun, gawking at what seemed an endlessly varying assortment of species; before she stopped counting she’d tallied more than a hundred. Slightly over half could be called bipedal and tended to have sensory organs at the apex of their forms, the rest went from chitinous multipedes to soft and all too often oozy gastropods. She ambled into and out of dozens of establishments and gawked some more at the kaleidoscopic confusion of things for sale and lists of services offered, cautiously avoided other structures that looked interesting but too dangerous at the moment. She walked until her feet were sore and her body yelled for food, then worked back to Starlong Way and the eating place called Xochimiyl. Skeen said: You’ll like it or you won’t, the food is good and the view is something else.

  The portal was delicately carved openwork, the wood a rich brown with dark streaks running through it. It swung open as she approached, wafting a subtle, pleasantly acrid perfume her way; she stepped into a cavernous atrium that smelled just enough of cool green and damp earth to wake in her a yearning to be back in the Mountains working in Aunt Carema’s herb garden. As she hesitated, uncertain what to do next, a small blonde woman came from behind one of the larger plants, an elfin creature dressed in layered gossamer robes that shifted like leaf shadows about a slim childlike body. “Welcome to Xochimiyl,” she said. “My name is Briony. How may we serve you?”

  They must choose them as much for their voices as their looks, Timka thought, that one makes synspeech sound like flute music. Serve me? Is this one of Skeen’s questionable jokes? If this is a funny whorehouse, I swear I’ll shave her head so she matches Tibo knob for knob. Aloud she said, “I’d like food and something interesting to drink.”

  “Of course. We have several nodes open now. Have you any preferences?”

  “A friend of mind said something about a view …?”

  “You will want the Island room then. One small precaution, despina, do you suffer from motion sickness or vertigo?”

  “No.” Timka blinked. Vertigo?

  “And do you have objections to any particular food categories or allergies that would discommode either you or us?”

  “None.”

  “I must tell you your answers have been recorded, despina, a needless precaution I’m sure. Follow me, please.”

  Timka sat in a malleable chair that tucked itself around her, supporting her in unobtrusive comfort at a free-form table that curved about her so she wouldn’t have to stretch for anything, chair and table on short silky realgrass, a small rose arbor behind her, a graceful willow tree beside it whose limber branches flickered about her, pointed leaves painting elegant shadows that drifted across and around her in ever-new configurations, all of this on an oval island that wandered about among many similar islands in a room that seemed open to the nothingness beyond the Pit Stop, a nothingness with stars that glittered above and below her, that made the triteness sea of stars a reality with nothing trite about it. She drank cold green wine, ate strange green vegetables and an odd flat fish with fungus dressing that melted on her tongue like nothing she’d tasted before. She ate slowly and watched the other patrons of Xochimiyl float past, a slightly less astonishing mix than that on the streets outside. Twice strange males and once a strange female rode the drift-ways to her table, but she shook her head, not wanting company or any of the complications it might bring, and they went away again. She finished the meal with a pot of hot tea.

  When the dishes had been cleared away except for the tea things and she was on her second bowl of tea, feeling warmly replete and happy with the world, a third man came up to her, a big man, dressed in black, head to toe, a shouting extravagant black, he was young, with a chiseled, handsome face, but something wrong with it, something bothersome, something not quite sane. He tapped at the table, sat in the chair that unfolded from the grass and smiled at her.

  She sighed and set the bowl down, annoyed that he was spoiling her mood, annoyed that she had to return to alertness and be ready to defend herself. “Go away,” she said. “I don’t want company and you block my view.”

  His smile broadened and still didn’t reach staring green-brown eyes. Animal eyes with nothing behind them. “I am Hested Vanker.”

  “So? You’re not transparent. Go away.”

  “I want you. Name your price.”

  She looked over, thinking: yes, I have changed, I’ll never sell myself again; she felt a rush of pleasure at the thought.

  He caught the flash of it and misread it; he leaned toward her. “Well?”

  She thought about insult, decided that anything she could bring herself to say would be so feeble as to be an insult to herself. “Your pardon, despois, you have made a mistake. I have no price. I am not interested in your offer. Have the courtesy to leave.”

  “I will have you at the price you quoted. Nothing.”

  She laughed, still annoyed, but amused a little in spite of her irritation. He was so sure of himself, so placidly arrogant, he was a joke, a not-so-funny clown. Her laughter died to a soft chuckle at the sudden rage it brought to his face. That rage was swiftly smoothed away. He sat silent, waiting. “I’ll tell you what you get for nothing,” she said. “Nothing. A fair trade, wouldn’t you say? Win a little more by leaving me; take my gratitude with you.”

  “I declare challenge,” he said, his voice blaring loud enough to draw eyes to the table. “Your body or my life. The game begins beyond the door.” He stood and stalked off, his dignity a bit impaired by the eccentricities of the driftways.

  Ah, Timka thought. My education begins. Find out the rules, Skeen said. Find a computer and buy the answers. She signaled for Briony and asked for the check, then began thumbing credit chips from the moneybelt Lipitero had made for her. The cost of the meal astonished her, but Skeen had been generous. She might be nearly broke, but she wasn’t about to let that worry her. Timka was looking forward to the time when she’d share some of that insouciance; she could counterfeit it in situations like this, but she had a knot in her stomach as she looked at the chips piled on the shell tray, a small mountain of them needed to pay for the relatively simple meal she’d just enjoyed plus the tip that Skeen told her to add on. Briony was saying something about hoping she’d enjoyed the meal and the ambiance of Xochimiyl’s Islands; Timka looked up, interrupted her. “Can you sit with me a moment?”

  “Certainly.” She slid gracefully into the chair Vanker had left extruded, rested her hands on the table, waited with friendly, alert but impersonal interest.

  “You heard the man Vanker?”

  “Yes.” Briony permitted herself a touch of sympathy, a delicate sigh.

  “What is this challenge thing? What is required of me?”

  Briony smiled vaguely, looked down at the pile of chips in the tray, then lifted her pale green eyes to Timka. She waited.

  Timka thought a minute, then thumbed out more chips and piled them in front of her. “What can you tell me that I couldn’t get for one of these,” she picked up a chip, held it between thumb and forefinger, “at the nearest computer outlet?”

  “Nuances,” Briony said softly, “things the Brain can’t tell you. Background on Vanker and his habits. Like that.”

  Timka nodded and pushed the chips across the table. “Enough?”

  Fingers moving quickly, neatly, Briony transferred the chips to the tray. “Generous,” she murmured, gave Timka a gamin’s grin, “but I don’t make refunds.”

  Timka clicked her nails on the table top. “Why me?” she said, the words exploding out of her. “Why me?” she said more quietly, “From what he could see, I’m nothing special.”

  “You’re new in the Pits?”

  “Very.”

  “Don’t think I’m prying, but you have friends here? The folk who brought you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did they let you wander about alone? Didn’t they warn you something like
this might happen?”

  “Skeen didn’t say anything about challenges.” Timka gazed past Briony at a spectacular spray of stars. She sighed. “Probably no one’s ever challenged her and she just forgot. She has other things on her mind. Besides she knows me, she knows I can take care of myself.”

  “Skeen? The Rooner? Ship Picarefy?” Briony leaned forward, a desperate eagerness breaking through her professional mask. “That’s your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “He doesn’t know that.” There was no question in her voice. “Call her.”

  “In a while. Why me?”

  “Because you’re new, you’re young, you’re attractive, he saw you and decided he wanted you. Because that’s the way he is. He sees something he wants, then he takes it. If someone tries to stop him, he cries challenge, and that’s the end of it. I’d best tell you, he never loses. Not in the five years standard he’s been here. Not in the more than hundred challenges he’s fought.”

  “There’s always a first time. What happens to me when I kill him?

  “When?” Briony bit her lips, her eyes shining with emotions Timka couldn’t sort out. “If you kill him,” she said softly, paused lips twitching into a tight nervous smile as Timka made a gesture of protest, “when you kill him, nothing happens to you. The Challenge is recorded. A life challenge. No, he can’t know who your friend is.”

  “He doesn’t know me. If by some wild chance he happened to defeat me, what happens?”

  “He keeps you till he’s tired of you, then he sells you where he can get the most for what’s left of you.”

  “I’ve no recourse but fighting him?”

  “Skeen. Call her.”

  “No. I don’t think so. If I stomp him, but don’t kill him?”

  “He’ll get you. I don’t know how, but he will.”

  “Then I’d better make sure he’s dead.” She waggled a finger at the pile of chips. “It’s not that, is it. You hate the man.”

  Briony chewed her lip, looked around like something timid and trapped, then shrugged. “What does it matter, everyone knows. And you paid the price for whatever I can tell you.” She closed her eyes, clasped her hands so tightly the tips went pink. “A friend of mine,” she breathed, “a sister, by love if not by blood. He took a fancy to her, but she loved me.” Her eyes opened, she flushed, paled. “She had a quick tongue, too quick. She told him to go play with himself, if he was lucky maybe he’d enjoy it more than his women had. She was wise enough to have a stunner pointed at him when she said it. She bought me a badge from the Shtrazi but couldn’t afford two. When he called challenge on her, she fought him and tried to make him kill her. He didn’t. He used her and humiliated her, he broke her, then threw her out when he was finished with her. She killed herself.” Briony shook herself, with visible effort she put off the grief that twisted her face and recaptured the image that greeted the patrons of Xochimiyl. She slid her hand under a fine gold chain she wore about her neck, lifted a black metal triangle from under the gauzes of her dress. “I still have the badge, I renew the fees every year, I will do that until he is dead.”

  Timka rubbed her thumb across her fingertips, flattened her hand on the table. “Thank you.”

  Briony slid the badge under her gauzes. “Why?”

  “Don’t be silly, you know the answer to that. Um … you implied I could call Skeen to help me.”

  “To fight in your place. Not beside you.”

  “Anything to complicate matters. Games, tchah!” She heard herself and laughed. “I … no, I can’t explain, not without telling you the story of my life. So. Hested Vanker. How does he fight?”

  Briony folded her hands, looked inward, spoke with soft non-emphasis. “A challenge lasts three days standard, starting for you the moment you walk out the door. While it’s on, you’ll not be permitted to leave Sundari. Skeen can’t help you that way, not if she wants to keep her welcome here and in the other Pits. He knows Sundari, every bubble of it. He has vermin who’ll make sure he knows where you are every minute. When he’s ready, he chooses the time, he chooses the place. You can’t hide and you can’t run. He favors his right side just a little, will swing right more often than left, but he knows that and compensates. I’ve seen him sucker at least two men with that weakness. He is very very good, despina. Strong. Fast. Don’t judge him by what you saw here. He might be a stupid clown most of the time, but he’s brilliant when he fights.”

  “The thing to do, then, is shake him loose from his patterns. Make him come at me before he’s ready.”

  “Despina, believe me, that’s been tried. Over and over.”

  “My name’s Timka. Call me Ti. Tell me his favorite weapons.”

  “His hands. Anything. For women like you that he doesn’t want to damage before he’s ready, a tangler.”

  “Good.” Timka giggled. “Be somewhere you can see his face when he tries that on me. If he gets a chance to.” She touched the pot. “Cold. I’d like another pot, please. Um … could you make a call for me? Without getting yourself in trouble?”

  “Of course, despina. Xochimiyl’s pleasure. If you prefer it, I can have a com brought to the table.”

  “Oh.” Timka shook her head. “I am not accustomed to this … this sort of life. How much is it going to cost me?”

  “Nothing, despina. This is Xochimiyl’s lagniappe. If you wish, you can tip the person who brings the com, a one perc is sufficient, but a tip is not necessary.”

  “Um … how private are these coms?”

  Again Briony chewed on her lip, her face wrinkled as she weighed her priorities. She fixed her eyes intently on Timka, brushed her forefinger lightly across her mouth. “Xochimiyl provides nothing but the best, despina,” she said in her lovely liquid business voice.

  “I see. Skeen should still be at the Buzzard’s Roost and even if she isn’t, they’ll probably know where to find her.” She stopped talking as the boy approached with the com and connected it for them, she gave him a chip and watched him flow off with the driftway. “Would you work this thing for me? Where I come from, a needle’s complicated technology.”

  “Skeen?”

  “What is it, Ti?” The tiny face in the image looked impatient.

  Timka went hastily through the events of the past half hour, finished, “I thought you ought to know. In case of complications.”

  “You’ve got it worked out?”

  “Yes. I think so. Shouldn’t take long. Briony says it’s probably a tangler.”

  A chopped-off laugh, then the head turned to someone off screen, then Skeen was speaking again. “There’s no hurry, Ti. Wait where you are say five, six minutes more. I’m still tied up here a while, but I’d like Tibo there. As you said, in case of complications, showing a friend’s face, that sort of thing. Um, Buzzard says be careful, Vanker’s tricky. But he doesn’t know you, does he.” Another laugh. “Don’t make a fool of me, hmm? … and get yourself killed.”

  “I’ll try not.”

  Timka sipped at the tea, savoring the taste of it and the warmth that spread through her body; the gentle drift of the island was like a cradle, rocking her to sleep. Briony fidgeted; she maintained her professional smile, but it was beginning to look strained. “Weapons,” she said suddenly. “Ti, how are you armed?”

  Timka poured herself more tea. “I’m not,” she said, “I’m going with what I was … born with.” She closed her eyes, consulted her internal timeclock. “Time is.” She got to her feet. “Do me a favor,” she said, “take care of my clothes, please.” She unlatched the moneybelt and laid it on the table, then proceeded to strip to her skin, folding everything neatly, piling shirt and trousers beside the belt, laying her boots across them. “Maybe you could bring them to the atrium in a bit?”

  Briony surged to her feet, knocking with atypical clumsiness against the table. “Ti!”

  Timka ran her fingers through her black curls, fluffing them out from her head. “I parade out in front like this, yelling for Vanker to c
ome get me, you think he can ignore that? Little naked woman calling him names, making a fool of him. My time, my place, Briony.” With a wave of her hand she stepped onto the driftway and let it carry her toward the exit.

  No one spoke though eyes followed her and after a short interval there was a building mutter of voices and the Islands began emptying onto the driftways. Timka ignored her followers; she felt good, alive. She laughed aloud, laughed again as the Islands echoed her joy, broke off, suddenly disconcerted by her reaction to the prospect of killing a man. Tchah, she told herself, this isn’t your doing, besides he owes the Lifefire more than one death according to what Briony said. Calmly, Ti-cat, you’re getting above yourself. Remember the other thing she said, he’s brilliant when it comes to a fight. Idiot-savant. Uh-huh. Definitely not brilliant otherwise. No no, forget that, my girl, don’t you be stupid too, borrow some of Skeen’s caution. What are you going to do if he ignores you? He can’t. Not him. What if he does? I’ll think about that when it happens.