Skeen's Search

by Clayton, Jo;

  Timka passed her the black box and stood behind her, staring down at Burn. “Now that you’ve got him washed up, he looks worse.”

  “Hmm. I’ve about used all the water in the reservoir.”

  “If that’s a hint …”

  Skeen moved her shoulders impatiently, opening the kit.

  Timka scratched at her thigh. “Lander says the sky has been buzzing since morning, but there’s no sign she’s been noticed. Those were supposed to be fugitives, weren’t they? It looks to me like they are in oddly close touch with the Kliu if that’s so.”

  “Mmm.” Skeen was working down the man’s back, spraying every cut, scrape and bruise with a whitish mist from a small squat can. She paused a moment to rub the back of her hand across her nose, waited out a sneeze, then she was at work again on the lacerated flesh. She heard Timka go on talking then her voice fading; when she finished with Burn’s backside, she rolled him over and straightened up and sat on her heels, shutting her burning eyes, letting herself feel the aches and rheums that filled her body. After a moment she looked around, but Timka was gone. She shrugged and went back to work tending the boy’s hurts. Not really a boy, she thought, he’d reject the term with vociferous disgust, but he couldn’t be more than a third of her age. And I’m feeling every year, this fuckin’ cold, this Djabo-cursed world that never lets up. I swear, once I get off here, I swear by my soul or what’s left of it, I’ll never set foot on a heavy world, it’s g or less for me, for sure. She set the kitprobe to dealing with the pneumonia flooding his lungs and the rest of the ailments inflicting his inside and went to check the water supply. Timka had managed, with or without the Lander’s help. The reservoir was filling quickly. She drained off a tubful into the heating chamber and started the pulser.

  With the prospect of a hot bath sparking a new surge of energy, she finished bandaging the boy, muscled him into one of the bunks and set the heaters going. The kitprobe was buzzing softly, steadily, not throwing one of its hiccupping fits; that meant most of the infection and the illness was cleaned out of his system and what he needed now was what he’d get, uninterrupted sleep. Something she wouldn’t mind for herself after the bath. For sure, after the bath. She didn’t want to leave before dark, not after what Timka said about the sky sweep. Even with Lipitero’s shields there was always the possibility one of those flying eyes would pop up close enough to get a good look at them; the Lander wasn’t invisible, far from it. She went back into the bathroom, stripping as she walked, smiling with pleasure as the heat from the radiators and the steam rising from the tub began to work on her stuffed head and sore body.

  Timka lounged in a pneumatic chair, stun rifle across her knees; she was back in Pallah form, wearing tunic and trousers, small slim feet buckled into heavy sandals. She scratched idly at her wrist and watched Rostico Burn snore. He was lying on the floor, a pair of blankets under him, another drawn over him; the grayness was gone from his face; apart from the snorting snores, his breathing was slow and steady. The bruises on his face and arms were developing lurid colors, but the worst of the swelling was gone after six hours of deep healing sleep and the efforts of Skeen’s medkit.

  Skeen came yawning in, mug in one hand, the other rubbing at her nose; her hair stood in soft crumpled peaks about her thin face, her eyes were shiny with the cold that was fruiting in her, her eyelids heavy, the tip of her nose red. She stood a moment looking down at him, sniffed and rubbed her nose again. “You talk to the Lander recently?”

  “A few minutes ago. The sky has been clear since sundown except for some activity north of here close to the horizon.”

  Skeen emptied the mug, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I don’t know, Ti, every time I think about it I change my mind. What do you think? Question him here before he’s had a chance to get his defenses working, or get him back to Picarefy where we’ll have time and room and, well, be a lot less likely to kill him getting the data out.” She looked at the mug and at the man, sighed and sank to the floor, all elbows and knees until she was settled beside the large black medkit. “He looks too much like someone I … I loathe, Ti, I don’t trust myself on this. What do you think?”

  Timka produced claws and clicked them on the stun rifle’s latticework stock. “What I think is we should get out of here. I know, I know. Listen, from what Mamarana said, more than one has tried to get Rallen’s location out of him and it hasn’t worked all that well. Give him time to get organized and I wouldn’t play Picarefy down, but I doubt if she’s mean enough, you see what I mean.” She turned a hand over and contemplated her claws. “Two things. One, he’s never going to get off Pillory without you, make him buy his way off. Two, there’s a reason for the shape he’s in and why he was in that cage. Maybe the reason comes in two words. Abel Cidder. Uh-huh. Not so big a coincidence, don’t you think? Given the interest he has in you with lagniappe like Rallen thrown in to sweeten the bait? Ah! Three things, this being the third: turn him over to me if nothing else works. Remember, I’ve got the Min mindreach, I’m fairly sure he’s too weak to keep me away from whatever I want to know.”

  “Even with a mindlock?”

  “I don’t know mindlocks, but mindlocks don’t know Min.”

  “True.” Skeen ran her hand through her hair, towsling it yet more. “We’ll need him awake. Um, Ti?”

  “What?”

  “Move back a bit more, will you? Watch him. Buzzard says he’s like me, I wouldn’t be too friendly right now.” She tucked the holster flap behind the darter’s butt, pushed into a squat, balancing on her toes as she reached for the medkit. She ran the dioscog along his body, sucking her teeth as the readings showed how fast he was recovering from the battering he’d received. “Ah, to be young again,” she murmured. Across the room, her chair blocking the entrance, Timka snorted. Skeen looked round. “No comments from the audience, please.” She dug into the kit, found the shotgun, slipped a stimtab in the magazine and shot him in the arm. She unfolded swiftly, kicked the medkit away and stepped back to wait for him to wake.

  He stirred, his hands groped, felt the blanket over him, plucked at it, went still as he opened his eyes a crack. For an instant he looked startled, then his face went blank. He pushed stiffly up until he was sitting cross-legged with the blanket pulled about him. He licked his lips, opened his mouth, shut it, swallowed. “Hello,” he managed, given Skeen a quick rueful look as his voice cracked in the middle of the word.

  Skeen nodded. “Who are you?”

  He glanced past her at Timka. Ti lifted the rifle, gave him a grim smile. He produced a grin of his own, as broad and charming as he could make it given a cut lip and assorted facial contusions. “Say who you want, cousin,” he told Skeen, “and I’m him.”

  “Cousin?” A caustic disbelief in the word, Skeen looked him over. “Kind, maybe, but not kin.”

  “Ah, you crush me, you do.” He shook his head with exaggerated melancholy. “But it’s not polite to be pushy, so I’ll drop that matter. What does Skeen the Marvelous want with me?”

  “More know me than I know. Who are you?”

  His battered face closed up for a moment then smoothed out then reclaimed the grin. “Why not. Rostico Burn’s the name I run under.”

  “Good. Talking kin, you want to give me line and sept? Not necessary, I’m just curious.”

  “Sure. Consider it a freebee. Rassta Abti soha Fahan, motherline Gyare-Ayf, fatherline Harac Farn, major sept Bryssal on Tor-Farran. We were a colony branch, you’re Torska, I’m Lingaban.”

  “Hah!” Skeen sucked air between her teeth, glanced at Timka. “Would you believe it, Ti? He really is a cousin.” She scowled at Burn. “I hope you don’t consider that a recommendation, most Brissali I ever knew were about as loving as a set of gritchers. You look like an uncle of mine.…” Her mouth twisted, she made an angular gesture, annoyed with herself because she couldn’t keep from picking at that ancient sore. “I’ve got a deal for you.”

  “I’m listening.”

&
nbsp; “You brought a shipload of artifacts to the Buzzard once. You called it Rallen work. Do you remember Rallen?”

  “Why am I not surprised? I remember Rallen.”

  “You’ll notice where we are.”

  “From the feel of it, on Pillory. Which is very interesting since according to a lot of people, that’s impossible. Unless Cidder finally caught you and this is his price for letting you offworld.”

  “Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that. Why were you in that cage?”

  He hesitated, looked around at the shelter, frowned past Skeen at Timka.

  Timka played her claw tips along the rifle. “Talking about Cidder …” she murmured.

  For an instant an angry frightened ferret looked through his eyes, then the charming grin was back. “Were we?”

  “My patience is limited, Burn.” Skeen paced about, careful not to get between the boy and Timka. “The cage.”

  His grin got a little strained. “They didn’t tell me much,” he said slowly, “but Shyem the Rat showed up day before yesterday. Cidder’s name came up in the, ahhh, party they played on me, what I heard, he and the Kliu were tight, he gets me or the orodokk would be erased down to the dirt.”

  Skeen slapped at her side, swore under her breath. “He’s here, then. That … that … he’s out there sniffing after me.” She straightened, angry, impatient. “This is the deal. We’ll get you off Pillory and out to a Pit, you give us Rallen.” Three quick nervous strides and she was taking the rifle from Timka. “Try holding out, and Ti here will suck it out of you. Give him some samples, Ti.”

  Timka stood; she stripped off her clothing and shifted from Pallah to cat to rockleaper to owl and back to Pallah. She got dressed again, crossed to stand in front of him, a sweet mocking smile lifting her lips. “That,” she said softly, “is to show you I’m a lot odder than I look and I’ve got talents you’ve no defenses against.”

  Skeen handed her the rifle and moved away. “Make up your mind fast, Burn, the sky’s full of lice and I want out of here before they swarm me.” She sneezed, wiped her eyes. “Fuck. Skeen’s word on it, you’ll get off Pillory if I do. And I will.”

  In spite of the sleep he’d had and the cleansing of his system by the probe and medication, his energy levels were at low ebb; though he fought to keep face and body noncommittal, his desperation showed through the frayed cloth of his control. “The Veil,” he said, speaking slowly with visible reluctance.

  “Where?”

  “Close to the Bell Rift.”

  One hand jigging impatiently against her thigh, Skeen looked at him with exasperation. “I’m not about to pull this out of you word by word,” she said. “Get on with it.”

  “You know what they call the Rope, it’s off the shoulder end, a slit in the gases like a short length of rope fraying off into the Veil. Rallen is in that slit moving toward the Fray, going to slide into it fairly soon as those things go. Their sun, they call it Nepoyol, is a singleton solitary and a young star and with the Veil as close around them as it is, you can’t even get a hint of other stars.” He stopped talking and fixed his eyes on Skeen, waiting to see what she was going to do. She’d given her word, but he wouldn’t fully trust that until he was off Pillory and free in some Pit or other.

  Skeen turned to Timka. “What do you think?”

  “Feels like he’s telling the truth.” Timka lifted the stun rifle, crossed her legs, settled it back on her thigh. “I’d have to get closer to deep read him.”

  “That’s good enough for now.” She ran her eyes over Burn, her mouth twitching into a half smile. “We didn’t think to bring clothes for you.”

  He relaxed, though this too he tried to hide from them. “I can make do with a blanket and some pins,” he said gravely, his eyes laughing at her. He jumped up, holding the blanket about him, looked down at himself. “My robe’s a little long.” He kicked at the folds. “It needs some redesigning.”

  She tossed him her bootknife. “You hungry?”

  “I could eat this blanket.”

  “Kaff or tea and what else? The autochef waits.”

  “Ahhhh, oh, Marvelous Skeen, oh, queen of legends and slipp’riest slider in all known space, if you only knew how I’ve dreamed of ham and fried eggs and whole grain toast and thick sweet kaff that’s half cream and thin thin slices of rangeo fruit. And if you’d come up with some safety pins, I’m ready to appreciate a fine home-cooked meal.”

  “There’s a repair kit in the bedroom, part of the services. Home cooked I don’t know about, but we’ll do our best. The autochef will, I mean. If I tried to cook, well, forget it.”

  “Most unfeminine of you, cousin. I’m sure our kin would be terribly disapproving.” He laughed and ambled out through the arch that led into the first of the small bedrooms.

  Timka looked after him. “He’s going to try something; what about the hatch in there?”

  “He’s not stupid, Ti.” Skeen smiled at the doorway, feeling a surge of affection for her mischievous cousin; she wasn’t going to trust him a hair beyond what she had to, but it was unexpectedly pleasant to find a member of her family who was worth more than the spit it’d take to drown him; she found herself liking the boy in spite of his face, the face of the uncle who had abused her from the day she came to live with him and her aunt, who’d made her life a misery till she killed him. Who still gave her bad dreams when she was feeling low. Fleetingly she wondered if there were more of her cousins about like Ross, would it be worth the danger to look them up? She tucked the thought away and turned to the autochef, looking through its repertoire to see how closely she could approximate Burn’s menu.

  “It’s impossible.” Rostico Burn followed Skeen out of the shelter, shivering as the chill night air coiled round his naked torso. The blanket had been reduced to a knee-length kilt. Much of his earlier wariness was wiped away and he looked younger than his double dozen plus years. Part of that, Timka thought as she followed them out, is euphoria about getting out of here, something I certainly agree with; the rest has to be Skeen, she’s acting like she’s found a long-lost son. I wonder how Tibo’s going to take this. “Nobody can get through Kliu security, Skeen,” Burn went on, waving a hand at the sky meagerly visible through the leaves. “I don’t know how many have tried it, I’ve talked to some of them. How …”

  “A very good question.” A rich mellifluous voice came from the deep shadows under the trees. With the voice came powerful light beams, pinning the three of them. “Be still. I prefer not to damage any of you.” A small figure less than a meter high stepped into the fringe of the lighted area. “Well, Skeen, we finally meet after missing each other so often.”

  “Hunh. Better for me if we missed this one.” Skeen took a step toward him, ignoring a snapped command behind the lights to stay where she was. Cidder held up a hand and the protest subsided. She set her hands on her hips, one close to the darter. “What now?”

  “A talk, I think. That question your young friend was about to ask.”

  Timka stared past Skeen, eyes wide, finding it hard to believe what she saw. The Abel Cidder she’d heard so much about was a tiny man, a doll of a man, but not the sort that invited cuddling, a hard rubber man wide as he was tall. Thick white wavy hair, broad beaky nose, wide, thick-lipped shapely mouth, high cheekbones, large lobeless ears. Dark brown eyes, thick straight brows. Large hands, a sculptor would like them, veins and muscles sharply defined. Flexible bass voice smooth as chocolate cream, a wonderful voice so rich the ears were sated by it very quickly. From what she’d picked up about him from Briony and others, interested because of Skeen’s reaction to his name, he was heavyworld born and bred, a deadly fighter, impossible quick, deceptively strong. Formidable as his physical equipment was (absurd to think of that doll as formidable, not absurd at all when she looked twice), his mind was far more dangerous; he had a capacity for assimilation of data and an ability to flip through combinations of unrelated snippets of fact that made him almost as eerie as Virgin with her disemb
odied companions, coming out of nowhere to take his quarry like a frog flicking his tongue to catch a fly. Bona Fortuna had cuddled round Skeen up to now; more than once he’d missed her by the breadth of a hair due to that luck and to her highly developed capacity for wriggling out of tight spots. A dozen times in the past dozen years, they’d come close to colliding but until now they’d never met. Until now he’d never had to stand with a crick in his neck looking up at her. In spite of his confidence in his own worth, in spite of his superiority to almost every being he’d met, he never got over having to look up into the faces of fools; he didn’t mind them laughing at him, this evidence of their stupidity merely fueled his contempt for them, it was that eternal backbend in his neck that got to him and turned him mean. Watching him, Timka saw that meanness grow as he gazed up and up at the tall lean woman standing before him.

  Rostico Burn had the good sense to keep his mouth shut and do his best to play shadow to Skeen; his eyes darted about looking for a crack he could dive through. The situation was hopeless right then, but he was ready to jump the moment he saw a chance, relaxed but alert, covering his intent with a layer of gloom.

  Abel Cidder whistled, three-note birdsong. His forces came silently from under the trees, three Kliu and five bountymen (trust him to be sure his safemen outnumbered the local help), the torches that pinned Skeen, Burn and Timka in the hands of the bountymen. At a gesture from one of them Timka rested the stun rifle against a tree and stepped back. Another gesture and Skeen began working with the buckles on the belt that carried her darter. Hardly breathing, the Kliu and the bountymen focused on her, watching her as if she were a live bomb about to explode. Cidder leaned toward her, tongue moving along his lips, his eyes glistening, an avidity in his face Timka found revolting; disarming Skeen, she thought, was getting him as excited as a bunch of feelthy pictures (the Poet’s words, remembered from some long ago feast when he had to do the pretty for country kin, the Poet’s disgust remembered and present in her now). She drifted to the edge of the light zone without drawing attention from Skeen and her slow scornful semi-strip, teetered on the verge of diving into the dark, but changed her mind when one of the torches flicked her way. She concentrated on standing very still and looking helpless. Fervently she willed the bountymen and the Kliu to overlook her, to forget about her, to cease noticing her.