Skeen's Search

by Clayton, Jo;

  “Fiuli is starting off three days from now.”

  “Saa saa, ah! You don’t give me long.”

  “That meeting took place today, a few hours ago. I’m here now because I asked the alien to bring me.”

  “Which one is it?”

  “The tall female. The one called Skeen.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the skip, the flier, keeping out of sight.”

  “They are generous, those aliens.”

  “They want to keep us sweet until they have the colonists for their Ykx.” She shrugged. “That’s what I think. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t trust them?”

  “I don’t know them, I don’t know the world they come out of. I do what I have to.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  Zelzony frowned. “That I’m here is bad enough.”

  “I can hold house, Zem-trallen.” There was an edge to the rich voice, annoyance in the thin face. “Bring her.”

  “I hear, Kinra.” Zelzony got stiffly to her feet, stalked out without another word.

  “Kinra.”

  “You are called Skeen.”

  “You have it.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “What’s my price, you mean?”

  “That is part of what I’m asking.”

  “Right. One, it costs me nothing much and I was bored with dealing. Two, Picarefy enjoys using her talents. Picarefy, that’s my ship, but don’t think of her as a machine, she’s as much a person as any of us. Three, it earns us good will. Four, I’m not a robot, I saw those pictures and I don’t care species or shape, whoever did that should be stopped. That’s about it.”

  “Good enough. Will you and your Picarefy be in the hunt when the Zem-trallen goes after the killers?”

  “Depends on what you mean. I understand well enough that too much alien will taint your evidence.” She flipped a hand at the player still lying on the table. “We can provide communications and transportation, if you want. Courtesy to our hosts, that should provide sufficient justification. Once the Zem-trallen has those crazies, we can transport them to the Kinravaly Reserve, that will avoid certain difficulties the Zem-trallen might face, considering who one of the killers is. Also we can transport the victim quickly to the nearest Care Center so he or she can be tended, mind and body.”

  “Yes.” Selyays pulled her hand across her mouth. “Thank you. I … ah … appreciate your clarity of vision.” She got to her feet. “I have to think. Zem-trallen, fer Skeen, Posi will show you to a room where you can be comfortable. If you need or want anything, ask her to bring it.”

  A quiet back court in the rambling complex belonging to the Sel clan in Laby Youl Gather, a port Gather, the one closest to the digressive impressive essentially lunatic aggregation of structures that constituted Yasyony University and to the Government Reserve. Reserve workers at all levels live in Laby Youl as do many of the students at the University, though there are living quarters available on the University grounds. An outside room, one in a cluster of such rooms forming part of the south wall of the court. Inside this, a young male Ykx in his late tweens packing for his wingride, a nursling cub crawling about on the floor dragging with her a much chewed rubbery grubber doll.

  Fiuli clicked his teeth and emptied the wingsac on the bed for the fifth time. There was no way he was going to get everything in. If he was packing for himself, it’d be easy, but he had to include Tissa’s things especially a fur cloak that developed a bulk so intransigent he’d given up trying to deal with it and intended to tie it to the baby web Tissa was going to ride in. He rubbed his hands together slowly as he eyed the three chaotic piles on the bed, then began sorting through them again.

  “Fiu Fiu Fiu,” a high warbling voice, alone at first then joined by a chorus of others, punctuated by laughter. He went to the door and looked out.

  Dropping out of the sky like a flurry of falling leaves, what seemed a swarm of tweener Ykx touched down on the courtyard paving flags and came rushing toward him, separating into seven laughing friends. The foremost was one of the rare pale golds; she ran to him, her flightskins shimmering, a triumphant grin splitting her elfin face. “Fiu, guess what, guess, guess, you’ll never guess.” She flung herself at him, hugged him exuberantly, danced back. The others gathered behind her, matched grins straining their faces.

  Fiuli leaned against the door jamb and took his time examining them. “So,” he said, “Tink. What’s this noise?”

  She laughed. “You! We’re going with you. All of us. On that scuzza great fly. The Mas and Pas they finally turned loose. History happening, hooo hah, never mind, that’s just parents going on like they do, who cares, we can go, we got credit, we got wings, we got passes. What you think of that?”

  He straightened slowly, stretched out his arms slow slow slow and beat his hands together over his head, whooped wildly, capered about, caught hold of Tink and danced her around, passed her on to Bar, grabbed Lolloy, whirled round with him, passed him on, danced around Tissa who heard the noise and came crawling out to laugh and sing her incomprehensible cooing songs, and finally collapsed with his friends in a laughing breathless pile.

  The overgrown neglected garden of an ancient tower, once a watchhouse for a group of amateur astronomers, now co-opted into the University as part of its farmlands. A half-hour’s easy soar from Laby Youl. Late afternoon, sky reddening with sunset. Three Ykx present: Laroul, Eshkel, Peeper.

  “I wanted that cub.” The strident whine blasted out of the speakers. On the screen a heavy brown was stumping about, throwing a royal snit.

  Laroul winced back from him, huddling on a bench that was being overgrown by an ancient vaddlin bush. The three plotters were in a weedy glade whose gonewild lawn was riddled with kunik holes, whose dusty paths had lost all their gravel. “You had the best of the last one,” he muttered.

  “What? What did you say?”

  “Nothing, Peep.” Laroul smoothed out his face. “Look, could I help it if those smik-eating stoup-nosed krats decide their kids should be there at that doodin historic smik?” His voice rasped with vitriol. He wasn’t really afraid of Peeper, but a life-long habit of withdrawal had more influence on his actions than his malice did.

  Eshkel scratched at a callosity on his palm; he was twitching nervously as he squatted on a clump of grass. He whined a protest at the noise Peeper was making, but the other two ignored him.

  Peeper continued for several minutes to rave and claw at anything soft enough to shred satisfactorily. Then he came back to Laroul and hunkered down by the bench. “What can’t be helped,” he said. “Schemer, you start figuring how you can get us some cubs. Sweet young flesh for us, ahhhh, that was soo gooood, I have to have more. Meanwhile, let’s look at your alternates.”

  A round room at the top of the Kinra’s Residence, the walls pierced by tall oval windows less than an armlength apart; darkness outside, thicker than usual, there was heavy cloudcover and every few moments a flurry of rain drops spattered against the thick glass; darkness inside, except for the soft cool glows about glass globes filled with ecologically stable collections of luminescent fungi and bacteria. A ring of padded backless chairs gathered about a table covered by electronic gear. Kinra Selyays, her head ortzin Elexin (a smoke gray Ykx male with a lined clever face), Zelzony and Skeen are sitting where they can see a meter square screen propped up toward one end of the table.

  Selyays lifted a hand. “Turn it down, I don’t want to hear more of that … that evil!” She spent the next few moments breathing hard and getting herself in order, then she said, “We can’t use that record in their trial, but I think it might be useful afterward. Will you give us a copy and a reader, fer Skeen?” When Skeen nodded, the Kinra managed a brief smile. She glanced at the images silently playing out the drama in the garden. “Will you listen for me, friend from Beyond-the-Veil, and tell me who they chose? I am shamed by my weakness, but I cannot, can not look at them any longer. Saa saa, th
ey have to be stopped. Going after cubs.” She swallowed hard, forcing back the nausea that threatened to send her retching. “Zem-trallen, how … how far do you have to let them go?”

  Zelzony plucked absently at the fabric covering her chair. “You know the answer to that, Kinra. They have to commit themselves to the point that there can be no possible denial of what is going on.”

  “Zem-trallen, hear me.” Selyays enunciated each word with fine crystal care. “If there is the slightest chance of the tweener dying or sustaining serious, permanent injury, you will go in immediately and pull the child out, whatever you think about the evidence.”

  “I hear.” Zelzony brooded at her hands, retracting and extruding her claws, watching the small muscles work in her fingertips. “Do you think I’m a fool?”

  “I think you have been working too hard at this for too long. I think your judgment might be unreliable.”

  “Then cut it off now.”

  “Saa, Zelzony, Zeli, all I want is for you to keep your balance.” She swept her hand in a half circle as if to cancel her doubts. “Tell me what you want, Zem-trallen, tell me how I can help. Agents? Doctors? Name it and it’s yours.”

  “Ah.” Zelzony leaned forward, face turned to the head ortzin. “Yes. I want ortzin, Elexin fej, your best. I want them watching the tweener, keeping records of everything that happens, building the chain so we have witnesses from departure to capture. I want agents who won’t be tripping over their own feet. That triad is nervous enough now at having to change targets, I don’t want them spooked. If they drop this one, the next might be in Marrallat. You know what that means.” She turned to Selyays. “Kinra, as soon as they take off, I want you to alert the University Care Center. Not one second before, rumors spread faster than the winds can blow them. I’m leaving you one of the hardest parts; you’ll have to get the parents and close kin of the tweener and take them to the Center. Skeen was right, it’ll be best to haul the triad straight to Kinravaly Reserve and put them in the holding center there.” She straightened her spine, rubbed at the back of her neck. “After this is over there’s a lot you can do.…” Frowning at one of the glow globes, she began talking slowly, thoughtfully.

  The grasslands outside the wall of the Kinravaly’s Garden. A crisp bright morning with a brisk wind whipping out of the north, turning lakewater into white-capped chop. Shadows long and intensely black. A skip darts out of the south, settles beside the lake. Skeen and Zelzony emerge, walk quickly over to join the Kinravaly who stands beside the wall, waiting for them. Already inside Workhorse, Tibo booms a greeting at them, then sets the tug to work. The huge folded legs begin to move about, changing conformation, unfolding into a crane that is half metal, half forcelines.

  Tibo winched the Lander out of Workhorse’s belly onto the drone dolly, while Skeen stood beside Zelzony and the Kinravaly watching the crane work. When the Lander was far enough from Workhorse so the two lift fields wouldn’t interfere, he put the tug on seal and came out to join them. “Cargo’s stowed,” he told Skeen, using synspeech to keep their business private, this being the first time he’d seen her since she’d left to set up the spy link, except for brief conferences over the com, conferences conducted in Rallyx to avoid making their hosts nervous. “Got the last load in before sunup this morning, the hold’s locked. We’ve covered expenses and more.” He grinned. “Rallen ware won’t be so pricey after this load. The pictures, hey; University will make us honorary scholars if that’s what it takes to get them.”

  “They’ll still bar us, Tib.”

  “So they will.” He turned to Zuistro, switched languages. “The bridge is set up for you, Kinravaly Rallen. You and whoever you choose to join you will be seeing everything that happens. The instruments are deactivated, they’re being controlled now from Picarefy. There’ll be a slight lag, less than a minute, the time it takes for the signal to complete its travels, you’ll be aware of it at first, but you’ll soon get used to the wait. The pin spies don’t have much range, but Picarefy has set small drone receivers along the route the boy has registered; she can move them quickly if she has to, say the triad traps the tweener and heads off with him in some unexpected direction. The drones can move much faster than the fastest of your wings. The Zem-trallen has arranged for Lipitero and Timka to be in one skip with two of her agents, the ones doing the imaging. Timka will shift to cat-weasel and take them as close to the triad’s camp as she can without alerting our targets. She’ll move closer herself, she’s a ghost when she wants to be, but she won’t do anything unless your people call her in, she’s backup in case things fall apart. That can happen and does. Zem-trallen, your chief agent, what’s her name, ah, Marrin, she knows Timka’s signal? Right. I’ll be flying the second skip and Ross will take the third. One of us with two more agents can follow the tweener as he leaves Laby Youl. You have good night glasses and night lenses for your imagers; Ross or I, whichever, can stay far enough away so the boy won’t be able to see the skip. If one of the triad is watching him, he won’t see anything either. At a guess they won’t follow him out, but wait somewhere along his line of flight. Once they’ve got him and they’ve made up their camp, the three of us can ferry the Zem-trallen’s people and their wings to a staging area far enough from that camp so the triad won’t hear the noises of the skips. Marrin will have a com set with a silence hood so she can talk without being overheard; she can be in touch with the Zem-trallen at all times. The Zem-trallen will be aboard Picarefy who has already moved her groundzero from here to Yasyony Government Reserve, she’ll be able to see everything from Pic’s bridge, keep touch with you in Workhorse and the agents in the field moment by moment. Questions?”

  In the Lander, rising.

  Zelzony watched the land fall away beneath her, held her breath as joy rushed through her; she was soaring as she’d never dreamed of soaring, even when she seized the idea of the starship and ran with it in the hope of healing her kind. The world dropped and seemed to shrink, details lost definition, colors changed and merged; at some point, between one blink and the next, it folded back on itself and was a cloud-streaked sphere hanging against fire-streaked darkness.

  “Coming up on Pic.”

  Skeen’s voice shattered Zelzony’s pleasure in this flight, reminding her that it wasn’t her flight, but this alien’s, that she was riding along like a baby in a carryweb. She closed her hands about the chair’s arms, her claws out, though she didn’t know it, the struggle to subdue an explosive mixture of anger, fear and most of all desire was absorbing all her attention.

  “That’s her, that’s my Picarefy.”

  Zelzony sighed and opened her eyes. She blinked. At first she thought the fishshape in the screen was small, not much larger than Workhorse down below, then she took a look at the firestreak behind the sleek black shape. It was one of the thicker streaks with a familiar braid of whorls and blotches, even from here familiar. She took several minutes to realize just how much of that braid was occulted by the black fish, an epiphany further delayed by the intimacy of their conversations. Talking with the ship without seeing her, she’d somehow developed the image of a being her own size, perhaps even her own shape; consciously she knew that was absurd, nonetheless the image was there. The reality of the ship, her immensity, was a physical jolt.

  A hole opened in the flank of the fish and they the minnow swam into it.

  Surrounded by metal, drowned in metal, metal so thick it didn’t respond when she touched a claw surreptitiously to it, hardly a sound, as if it swallowed sound. Swallowed hope too, because if it took metal like this to make a starship, it would never happen. Somehow she hadn’t thought of that with the tug, the metal there was as thick, as present, but not so much of it, never so much. She followed Skeen from the lock into a tube. The alien looked over her shoulder. “This could be startling. Don’t worry about it, go with the flow.” A long unfurred hand, flat useless nails, reached out casually, brushing touched a part of the wall.

  Gentle but utterly i
rresistible, something untouchable unseen closed about Zelzony and MOVED her. Like sliding on ice multiplied tenfold, she WENT. Between one breath and the next she was someplace else. And was angry again because she wasn’t given time to be afraid and conquer the fear.

  Another casual flick of Skeen’s hand and the wall opened.

  Zelzony followed her into a room that once again surprised her. She’d expected something vast and echoing, commensurate with the area of the hull, but the bridge was a homey size, her parlor down below was larger. There was one oversize thing, an immense screen that curved across the whole of the front wall which, since the room was wedge-shaped, was considerably broader than the back wall where the entrance was. Two complicated chairs rode on thick round pedestals in front of the screen, and there were several smaller simpler seats scattered about behind these. No instrumentation visible; if there was any, it was tucked away behind what looked like wood panels, the wood waxed and polished until it glowed with life. The floor was a dark brown wood with red and gold lights. There were several plants in pots, even a small tree. Skeen saw her astonishment, grinned at her. “Pic keeps reading ancient magazines and redecorating her inside. Whenever I leave her alone a few days, I come back and get lost.”

  She settled Zelzony in the left hand chair and took the other. “Let’s have a look, Pic.”

  Zelzony bit back a startled exclamation as the chair shifted under her adapting to her form.

  Skeen turned her head. “If you want something, Zem-trallen, just ask, Pic will provide.”

  Zelzony said nothing, she had a lot of sorting out to do before she felt able to speak. This last bit of unnecessary instruction was a match to kerosene and still she kept the flare inside. The alien hadn’t the faintest notion how she was feeling, no doubt the woman didn’t really care. Zelzony turned to stare at the other. Skeen was stretched out in her chair watching the screen come to life. So suddenly she didn’t understand herself, Zelzony wondered what the alien really thought of Rallen—and, a question much more painful, of her. She writhed inside as she realized how much she craved approval from this dubious stranger. As if she needed the validation of an outsider to know her own value. She couldn’t deal with this, not now. She didn’t want to think about it, now or ever. She had to think about it. Later, when there wasn’t so much pressure. Later later later.… She swallowed and lifted her eyes to the screen.