Skeen's Search

by Clayton, Jo;

  “You’ve been taking language lessons,” Skeen said, laughter in her voice.

  “Self-defense, I swear it.”

  “Live with them till tomorrow like we planned. Pic, I’ve got a sweet little problem for you to play around your circuits. That’s Rallen’s head cop you see there.” She chuckled. “Quite a change from the usual scenario, isn’t it.” More soberly, she went on, “Help her all you can, Pic, it’s a mean one. She’ll give you the layout. Um, she’s called Zelzony.” Skeen swung round to face Zelzony. “Just talk, the sensors will catch your voice and send it up. Her name is Picarefy, please use it when you speak to her.”

  Feeling odd talking to a mechanical thing (though it helped that the other alien, Tibo, continued to watch from the screen, giving her the comforting illusion she was talking to him), Zelzony repeated once more the list of deaths and what she’d done to discover the authors of them. It was not easy, baring Rallen’s troubles like this to strangers who had no stake in them, but she was at the end of her resources and she kept seeing the mutilated cub. She finished, swallowed a sigh, waited for some response.

  “I am going to ask questions which you might find irrelevant and even embarrassing,” Picarefy said. Her voice was a lovely thing, warm and friendly, a blend of alto and tenor Zelzony found soothing to ears and spirit. It struck her as odd, another odd thing to add to the many she was accumulating as she associated with these people, that this voice moved her almost as much as Zuistro’s did, yet it came from a machine. The voice made it easy to forget she was talking to a machine. She accepted that gratefully and relaxed yet more. “Some questions you will think unnecessary because I must already have the answers from Lipitero and the flakes she has allowed me to read. Please answer them nonetheless. Rallykx are omnivorous?”

  Zelzony opened her eyes wide, then smiled and settled herself for a long chat. “Yes.”

  “What about the Old Ykx?”

  “As far as we know, yes.”

  “On Ysterai were there predators large enough to threaten an adult?”

  “That’s a bit hard to answer. Have you been told about the accident that brought us here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ahh, yes. Piktar packs. There’s a lot about them in children’s cautionary tales. The Piktars will get you if you don’t watch out. So don’t you go out alone, you fidgety cub. A Piktar was small enough to hold in one hand.” Zelzony held out a cupped hand, cupped the other over it. “Like that. But they ran in packs of fifty or more. Sometimes several hundred, if the food supply permitted it. Adults could outrun them or soar away from them, especially the latter, since Piktars never gave up on a meat trail. They generally went after children, especially cubs before they could soar, got round them and overran them. Some of the best stories are about summercubs who vanished down the gullets of the swarm.”

  “How did you get the meat you ate?”

  “Nets. Soar over a herd, pick your beast, preferably one on the outside, spook the rest into running off, cut the throat, bleed the beast, butcher it on the spot and distribute the sections to the hunting party. The most dangerous part of the hunt was getting the meat back to the Gather. Cutting the carcass up reduced the weight enough so the band could fly it back. If possible they hunted around escarpments or gullha trees so they would have a height to launch themselves from.”

  “Before you had nets?”

  “I really don’t see the point, never mind, it’s all speculation anyway. Story goes this way. One day a swarm of Piktars stampeded a herd over a cliff and a wandering band of Ykx got there first. The Ykx had a wily old female for their point. She decided she liked fresh meat better than carrion and put her mind to getting it.”

  “Ah. Male, female, how were the roles distributed?”

  “Who knows. Listen, I’ll tell you what happens now. A female Ykx bears alive. During the later part of her pregnancy, she is too heavy to soar, so I suppose back then that meant she couldn’t hunt during those months. Once the child is born, the male feeds it from blood nipples he develops when he lets the cub lick and suck at him. You see what that means. Males and females trade responsibilities; in early times they probably took turns doing the hunting. A female Ykx tends to be larger than a male, she needs the mass to provide for the fetus; what happens is females tend to do the heavy work, ah, and I suppose most of those old hunting bands had female points, while males did more of the fine work; from the old tales, they did the courting, preened like bright birds and fought a lot, being, as a whole, more aggressive than females. Now, the fertile period in females is short, just six years, and the maximum number of children she can produce is three. Male fertility lasts longer. Do you want to know about copulation? It starts a few years before either sex is fully fertile and continues a long time beyond the child-getting and bearing years. A bonding mechanism, our students of custom tell us in their dry, cold way. You talk of sex roles, do you understand how fuzzy the edges are for us? We Ykx spend the greater part of our lives as not-parents. So gestation and suckling mean rather less to us than to other species. You see me? I used up my patience raising my youngest brother, my mother died when he was born. My own children, well, I had my three as soon as I could and left them with their father to raise; to speak honestly, they bored and irritated me; not him, he liked holding and tending them. Sometimes it happens that way, sometimes the mother takes over after weaning, sometimes the parents share the raising. It depends on temperament not custom.”

  “I see. The roles are diffuse, but family bonding is strong; I understand that your Gathers are actually clan holdings, one large extended family.”

  “It’s rather more complicated than that. Still, I suppose all of the Ykx in a Gather are connected one way or another to a smallish family grouping among the original settlers.”

  “Lifespan?”

  “A healthy female Ykx can expect to see her Four-hundred. Male lifespan is somewhat shorter. They have more complicated metabolisms, burn up faster.”

  “Local years?”

  “I don’t …” She stopped, blinked. “I never thought that years would have different lengths. It depends on how far you are from the sun, doesn’t it. How strange. If someone says I’ll see you two years from now, how do you know when to meet? I suppose you have some sort of standard time length you refer to. Never mind explaining now, we can talk about that later. Local years, yes.” She looked doubtful. “Do you need some sort of measuring guide to tell how long that is? Our years are a fraction over three hundred ninety-eight days.”

  “Thank you. From what I have seen of Rallen, your ties to Gather and Gurn are very strong, much stronger than other species I have observed. Yes. Your technology forces you to be less flexible than you were in earlier times, you have less freedom to express your idiosyncracies. Your classes are shut within boundaries without the elasticity they once had, too many possibilities are foreclosed. No, Zelzony, don’t protest. I’m not saying you’ve a society that grinds its people into faceless clones. You don’t. I know a number of people who’d say you’ve done very well indeed for yourselves. I am saying that there is less looseness in the mix. With some notable exceptions, you Rallykx can’t shake time loose from the demands of work and Gather to fool around with unstructured nonsense. You’ve codified dutychoice and joychoice and work hard at both and in a sense you’ve squeezed the juice out of your lives. I know, yes, I know that’s overstating the case, you have your poets and singers, your thinkers and your seekers, those folk who ignore the pressures I’m talking about because they’ve got something that they are so passionate about nothing else has much reality for them. What percentage of the population are they? Listen, this is what I’m telling you. You Rallyx have developed your technology and the work structures created by it to the point where they are beginning to overload your institutions and suck the life out of your traditions. Add to this the oppressive effect of the Firestreaks coming visibly closer year on year with no way to escape them. Add again the deeply driven need
of your species to soar, actually and figuratively. Add the impact of Rostico Burn’s arrival, the reminder of the vast spaces beyond the Fire, spaces forever locked away from them, as far as they know. You tell me that suicides have increased ninehundredfold since Burn’s appearance; tell me this, isn’t suicide violence against the self? Your murderers have turned outward when others have gone in. Well, none of this is particularly helpful for finding them. Yes. Before the arrival of Rostico Burn, were there any suspicious deaths?”

  “No.”

  “You say that with certainty.”

  “Too much certainty?” Zelzony shook her head. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.” Se picked at the chair arm with the tips of her claws, frowned unseeing at the screen. “Each suicide had a history of depression and growing disturbance. There were witnesses registered to swear to the circumstances of each death. The first mutilated bodies were found some considerable time after Burn’s departure. Rather ineptly camouflaged as Burn-deaths.”

  A long silence. Then Picarefy said quietly, “Do you have a list of witnesses at that first Burndeath and the genuine suicides of all types after that?”

  “I could get some part of the names; you should understand, circumstances make it difficult to get data out of Marrallat and Urolol. Why do you want those names?”

  “In the long ago on Ysterai a hunter acquired a taste for fresh meat and arranged to get more of it. Some of your Rallykx have acquired a taste for death. In the beginning it’s likely they sought out suicides to indulge this craving. Because they didn’t know what they were going to be doing, they wouldn’t bother hiding their presence, why should they; in appearance, they were there like all the others to urge the suicide to change his mind. Who could read their hearts and know they were really there to feast on death? So they wouldn’t hide their traces like they did later. Look for witnesses that show up on several lists. Look for names that don’t fit, strangers from other Gurns. All you really need is one name, the end of a thread you can pull to unravel the camouflage over them all.”

  “I am a fool! Why didn’t I see that? Something so obvious, so simple?”

  “Not so simple as all that. You were concentrating on the victims.”

  “Yes. And there was nothing to point to the killers. They were chosen by chance, no more.”

  “Um, I doubt if it was wholly chance; I think you’ll find that your hunters observed their prey for some time before they snagged it. The lack of clues is a clue in itself. You told me not one of the dead was reported missing less than fifteen days after his or her disappearance. Everyone of these youngsters was expected to be gone for a fortn’t or longer. Even that last cub, she was traveling with an older cousin to visit her father’s kin on one of the resort islands, travel time a minimum of ten days. They weren’t listed as missing until they were five days late. From what you say, no one has reported strangers asking questions about any of the victims. How do the killers know which travelers are going where and how long they will be gone? Are there expeditions of a solitary nature that require licensing or offices where the victims would report the intended absence from their home Gathers? Who would have licit or illicit access to such reports? The descriptions you have given me of the condition of the bodies indicates a certain delicacy of touch, as it were, suggesting a being adult enough to savor his or her pleasures, postponing ultimate gratification as long as possible. In eight of the nine cases, the victims were raped with traces of semen present, though, unfortunately, too much time had elapsed for typing, so at least one of the killers is a sexually active male. And finally, what individuals of working age could disappear for five to seven days without causing comment? Answer these questions and compare them with the lists of witnesses, then you might have an individual or two you can concentrate on.”

  Cursing softly at the incompatibility of the two systems of recording, Zelzony worked frantically at the rekkagourd, entering notes in her personal shorthand. She looked up after a moment, saw Skeen watching her with a sympathetic smile. Her face crumpled, the hard elegant lines shattered by anger, frustration, selfblame. “I knew all this, why why why didn’t I see it? The Kinravaly said it, why didn’t I hear what she was saying? If you know how, you know who, she said. If you know how.…”

  “You were looking so hard in one direction you lost your peripheral vision. That’s a benefit of living Beyond the Veil, you learn to watch back and sides as well as what’s in front of you. Thanks, Pic.”

  “My pleasure.” A silence that was hesitation rather than a finish. Skeen leaned forward, waiting; Zelzony stopped her work with the rekka, wondering what was coming next. The voice that came from the speakers was wistful, a sigh implicit in the slow words. “Skeen, I … I have enjoyed this consultation. Watching is good enough, but do you think someone else down there would like to talk to me?”

  Skeen turned to Zelzony. “If the Kinravaly lets us out to talk to your folk, we’ll be using skips, um, two-seat fliers. Takes less energy and easier to handle, put down, less likely to damage anything or anyone. Workhorse will be staying here as a base of sorts. I could seal off anything I don’t want touched and make sure a visitor can’t harm herself, himself or the tug.” Laughter in her voice, she said, “You can send your cleverest spies, my friend, Pic’s a lot more discreet than I am.”

  Zelzony produced a smile. “Let’s talk a bit. Favor for favor. The Kinravaly would like starcharts and a reasonably detailed sketch of the political situation outside the Veils.”

  “Set starcharts aside for the moment. Talk for talk. Send your, um, Seekers to chat with Picarefy and while they’re chatting, she’ll answer what questions she thinks she can or should. That acceptable to you?”

  “Hmm.” Zelzony rearranged her flightskins, pulling them over her knees. How much can we trust these people, how do we know this … this machine would give us anything like the truth? We’ve got no way to check on it. All-Wise give me patience. This wasn’t her metier, she felt incompetent and found the feeling disturbing; Zuistro should have Hatenzo doing this. She squashed down a sudden surge of anger at the Kinravaly. Zuistro was asking too much; it wasn’t fair. She had other lovers, other Ykx she trusted, Zelzony knew that with a coldness that rapidly washed away the remnants of anger and left her with a sick uncertainty that was exacerbated by the need to conceal it from these aliens. She made a sharp, slicing gesture, get this over now, she thought. “For the moment. You can talk to the Kinravaly about more time later.”

  “Good enough, eh, Pic?” Skeen was stretched out in her chair, relaxed and smiling a little; she looked lazy and hardly interested in this give and take, but Zelzony didn’t believe it, not a drawled syllable or a smiling eye.

  “Good enough.” The ship’s voice was almost purring.

  Skeen yawned and stretched. “I’m a sucker for Pic’s interests. Those organics of yours, you might be able to trade some basic texts for the starcharts you want. I hear you Rallykx are working on ways to interface the two sorts of technology. No one better than Pic at that sort of thing, chances are she could give your Seekers some useful tips.” The voice was slow and lazy, the offer slipping out with such a lack of emphasis Zelzony almost missed it as she worked over the rekka trying to get down a detailed account of the conversation before it leaked out of her head.

  She realized suddenly what she’d heard, jerked her head up. “I don’t know,” she said, more sharply than she intended. She caught herself, closed her eyes a minute, went on with more calm, outwardly at least. “You’ll have to talk to the Kinravaly about that.”

  Skeen smiled, waved a languid hand and turned to the screen. While Zelzony finished her notes, the alien spoke at some length with the man and the ship. Leaving the screen on, she led Zelzony outside again.

  They stood a moment beside the massive ship. Skeen ran her hand along the cool slick flanks of the beast. “You might mention that Workhorse here could be put out for rent if you come up with a good offer. With her in your hands and a little tra
ining, you could get out to your asteroid belt. There’s considerably more heavy metal out there than you have on this world.” She patted the nearest landing leg. “It would have to be a very good offer, the old girl is a powerful beast with good cargo capacity.”

  Zelzony tightened her mouth into a thin line, hating the casual arrogance of that offer; the alien knew what a temptation that ship was to everyone on Rallen, only the All-Wise knew what she’d manage to squeeze out of them for the use of that worn-out piece of junk. No, it wasn’t that bad, it was a good machine, but old, the alien probably wanted to replace it anyway and now she could twist its value out of us while she kept hold of it. And I’ve got to go with them if they persuade our Ykx to follow them. They will, I know it. They will and I don’t know how I can stand it. Unable to respond without shouting her rage, she waited in silence, saw the alien shrug and turn away. Still silent, she followed her back into the Kinravaly’s Garden.

  FOR REASONS OF HER OWN THE KINRAVALY AGREES TO SPONSOR LIPITERO AND SEND HER TO ALL GURNS AND GATHERS WILLING TO HAVE HER SPEAK.

  LIPITERO AND TIMKA START OFF ON THE TALK SHOW CIRCUIT, TAKING WITH THEM A HERALD FROM THE KINRAVALY’S STABLE, FLIPPING FROM GATHER TO GATHER IN A CROWDED BUT FAST LITTIE SKIP (EVERYONE WHO SEES IT COVETS WITH A PASSION TOO POWERFUL TO BE CONCEALED; PETRO GETS ENOUGH OFFERS FOR IT TO LEAVE HER RICH FOR LIFE IF THE SKIP HAPPENED TO BE HERS). NEWS OF HER IS CARRIED AHEAD OF HER BY WINGRIDERS COMMANDEERED BY THE HERALD.

  SKEEN AND TIBO GO TRAVELING ON THEIR OWN (THEY ALSO HAVE A THIRD IN THEIR SKIP, A COURIER FROM THE KINRAVALY’S SERVICE WHO SITS IN ON ALL TALKS, TAKING COPIOUS NOTES OF THE DEALS ARRANGED; SKEEN IS IRRITATED BY THE NECESSITY, BUT TIBO KEEPS HER TEMPER REASONABLY LEVEL AND, WITH HER, CROSS TEAMS THE RALLYKX WHO ARE NOT SO BAD THEMSELVES AT WORKING UP A DEAL). SKEEN AND TIBO BUY ON THE SPOT A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE OF THE ARTIFACTS THEY ARE OFFERED, PAYING FOR THEM WITH GOLD AND SILVER BITS FERRIED DOWN FROM PICAREFY, ALSO THEY SET UP FUTURE EXCHANGES CONTINGENT ON THEIR RETURN. RALLYKX TECHNOLOGY HAS SEVERAL CONSPICUOUS BLANKS. NO LONG-DISTANCE COMMUNICATIONS. COURIERS RIDING THE MOST EFFICIENT OF WINGS HAND CARRY LETTERS AND REKKAGOURDS. THE RALLYKX HAVE NO CAPACITY FOR REPRODUCING SPEECH, INSTEAD THEY HAVE DEVELOPED AN EFFICIENT SHORTHAND AND WRITERS SO SKILLED IN USING IT, THEY COME CLOSE TO BEING FLAKE-MACHINES. THEY HAVE SUPERLATIVE IMAGERS AND PHOTODUPLICATORS OF REMARKABLE SUBTLETY AND FIDELITY (SO MUCH SO, THAT THERE IS AN ARTFORM ON RALLEN PREDICATED ON THESE DEVICES). THEY ALSO HAD INTERESTING COMPUTERS WHOSE CAPACITY RATHER ASTONISHED SKEEN WHEN SHE SAW HOW LITTLE POWER WAS INVOLVED IN THEIR OPERATION AND WHAT THE RALLYKX COULD DO WITH THEM.