Skeen's Search

by Clayton, Jo;

  “Of course, how thoughtless of me.” It was the big one being genial. “We don’t want you catching pneumonia, now do we. Eshko, get the young man’s blankets. I’ll lift him so you can spread them under him.”

  “Y y you c c could just un untie m me.”

  “Nooo. I don’t think so.”

  The big one, the one called Peep, lifted him. His fur was thick and rough and smelled smoky-acrid, his chest was hard and hot. As he stood holding Giulin, his fingers moved a little, small caresses that nearly shattered the boy’s control. He began thinking about rumors he’d heard, tweeners who’d gone off and hadn’t come back. He didn’t know anyone who’d disappeared like that, but there were stories … about … about bodies turning up, bodies savaged by beasts. Or something. I have got to get away, I have got to get out of here. Docile. Yes. Let them think I’ve given up. Peep laid him on the blankets, moved his big hands over the boy, fondled his penis sheath briefly, then straightened and moved off.

  Giulin tested the thongs binding his wrists and came close to tears. Whichever of them had tied the knots knew what he was doing. He turned on his side and began exploring the stone beyond his blankets, hoping to find a fragment of stone or a bit of bone or shell. What he found was dust. He shivered, recovered, brought his wrists to his mouth and began chewing at the tough leather.

  The third Ykx returned to the hollow carrying a load of firewood. He dumped it a few paces away from Giulin, came over to look down at the boy, the scrape of his footsteps barely enough warning so Giulin could stop gnawing and turn on his back. This one was skinny, what the boy could see of him looked dry and dessicated. He grunted and went over to the wood pile. “Eshko, your turn on the wood line.”

  The quaverer protested, citing his age, his arthritic hands, his bad back. The thin sour one waited him out, handed him the hatchet. “As much again as this,” he pointed at the wood he’d brought, “or you go back out, you hear?”

  “Peep?”

  “Hurry back, old friend, or we’ll start without you.”

  “You wouldn’t, you can’t, you …”

  The big one just laughed. Eshko snatched the ax and hurried out.

  Giulin went back to gnawing at the thongs, grinding as hard as he could at leather that seemed more like plaited steel. Firelight. They’d see him, stop him. All-Wise give them good appetites, let them concentrate on the supper they were talking about. The thongs were weakening, he could feel the give.

  Peep was whistling as he shaved long curls from a bit of dry wood, the skinny one worked at building a small compact pile of lengths of wood more or less the same size. Stopping a second to catch his breath, Giulin looked over his shoulder at them, fought down the panic that threatened to engulf him. They’ve done this before. Lots of times. They know exactly what to do, they don’t even have to think about it. His breathing broke on a sob, then he went back to worrying at the thongs that bound his wrists.

  Zelzony leaned forward tensely, eyes moving over the cells.

  *Marrin was wedged in a crotch of a quivering longleaf, glasses fixed on the hollow, agents like dark fruit in trees around her, like her, watching. Her body was stiff with insult, the hands clamped around the night glasses had the claws out. Beyond her, deep inside the hollow, dark figures moved back and forth between the fire and a recumbent figure.

  *Tibo, Lipitero, Rostico Burn in their separate skips waited up above, settled on the stony barren earth a short way back from the rim of the canyon. If the triad flew up there, they would see the skips, but there seemed little chance of that.

  *Peeper, Laroul and Eshkil were finishing a meal of bread, cheese, meat and roasted tubers, taking turns poking food into Giulin. The boy accepted their tending and its attendant caresses without resistance, his passivity disappointing and angering Eshkel. Peeper wasn’t fooled, he grinned at the boy, his attitude one of amused complicity. Laroul was stiff and impersonal, even when he rubbed his hand over one or more of Giulin’s erogenous zones, as if he were pushing buttons to test out the responses of some machine.

  A remote came in with a table, a pot of iska and some sandwiches, arranged these beside Zelzony.

  “Zem-trallen.” When there was no response, Picarefy spoke again, louder. “ZEM-TRALLEN.”

  Zelzony started. “What?”

  “They’re taking their time, it might be hours yet before you can move. Eat something. Hunger plays games with your head.”

  Zelzony pulled her hand down her face, left it pressed over her mouth. Two rasping breaths, then she took it away. “Yes. I suppose.” Her eyes drifted back to the screen. “Why don’t they do something I can pin them with,” she muttered. “So I can stop this hideous …”

  “Eat, Zem-trallen. There’s nothing you can do. The boy will survive it. Remember what the dead tweeners looked like, remember the cub, remember the work you’ve done so there won’t be more dead. Your agents are there, they’ll move in the minute you give the word. You’ll know when you have what you need to put those sorry sick monsters where they won’t hurt more children. You know you can’t act before then. So?”

  With a broken-in-half gesture that was meant to signify both her reluctant agreement and how much she loathed having to agree, Zelzony filled a mug with iska, chose a sandwich and after a brief surprise at how hungry she was, began eating.

  TIME OUT FOR ARTISTIC AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS. IN THE INTERESTS OF VERISIMILITUDE, I COULD DO ACTION AND COLOR ON THE TORMENTING OF GIULIN, CONDUCT YOU INSIDE HIS MIND AND SHOW HIS STRUGGLES TO COMPREHEND AND DEAL WITH THE GRUESOME THINGS HAPPENING TO HIM (A CHILD RAISED IN A WARM, LOVING, WHOLLY NONVIOLENT ENVIRONMENT), SHOW A CONSIDERABLE INTELLECT BLOTTED OUT BY THE GRADUAL ESCALATION OF PAIN AND TERROR UNTIL ONLY AN ANIMAL WAS LEFT, WHIMPERING AND FUTILE. ON THE OTHER HAND, HOW MUCH WOULD THIS INVOLVE WRITER AND READER IN A KIND OF COMPLICITY WITH THE TORTURERS? ME, I THINK I’LL LAND ON THE SIDE OF THE LESS AND TRUST YOUR IMAGINATIONS TO SUPPLY WHATEVER DETAILS YOU NEED TO MAKE THAT SCENE REAL FOR YOU.

  Marrin to Zelzony (though the clear baffle drawn down over her face prevents sound from escaping, she whispers). “Zem-trallen, let us stop this. I don’t know how much longer the ortzin will hold.”

  Zelzony to Marrin (pressing her hand across her mouth, frowning at the screen. Without taking her eyes off the scene in the hollow, she pulls her hand away, slaps at the chair arm). “I know! I … ssss haaah … we have to be sure there’s no question what’s happening. It won’t be long before they start cutting … ahh … give the order to go in when you see blood on the boy. When YOU see it. Don’t wait for me and don’t let the agents push you.”

  Marrin to Zelzony. “I hear. Thank you.”

  Eshkel brought a handful of counters out of the pouch. He rattled them in his fist, held out his hand. “Peep?”

  Peeper inspected the counter Eshkel dropped onto his palm, grunted. “Yaut.”

  “Lar.”

  Laroul accepted his counter, examined it without change of expression. “Wing.”

  “And me.” Eshkel rattled the counters again, dropped one into his other hand. “Annnd … behold, Sun. Sun takes Wing, Wing takes Yaut. Saa sa.” He knelt beside the shuddering boy, passed his hand over the blue-gray skin of Giulin’s chest, smiling as he felt the jerk of the chest muscles. “Saaa yes, the sweet sweet pain.” He groped through the shadows on the floor, found what he wanted, a sheathed scapel and a small vial, an artist’s brush for painting fine lines held against it by several twists of a rubber band. “We’re going to feel things we’ve never experienced before, we’re going to be alive, little love, alive.…” He slipped the sheath off, danced the knife over Giulin’s chest, cutting shallow hashmarks from his shoulderblades to the fine curls at the edge of his belly fur. At the first touch of the knife, the boy gasped and writhed, tried to pull away, but Peeper at his feet and Laroul at his head held him still. When his body absorbed the lack of real pain, he relaxed a little, still frightened, but puzzled as well. With an absurdly prim neatness, Eshkel wiped th
e blood off the scalpel using a soft white cloth, then fitted the sheath over the blade and set the scalpel back on the floor. He shook the vial, thumb over the cork, forefinger under the rounded bottom, then pulled the brush from under the band. “Sweet, sweet …” he murmured. He pulled the cork out, held it between the last two fingers of the hand with the vial, dipped the brush into the orange red liquid. “Nowww.…”

  When she heard the hoarse terrible scream, Marrin blew the two-note signal to take them. More screams whipped at her as she dropped down the tree and ran full out toward the hollow, crashings around her and ahead of her from her agents, all of them driving themselves to their limits so they could get into that hollow and stop the sounds coming from it.

  By the time she got there, younger fleeter Ykx had the three pinned and were in the process of pinioning them. Kert was sobbing, but he had his imager going, getting pictures of everything that was happening around him. Fescan was kneeling beside Giulin, trying to cut the thongs off his bloody wrists and ankles, failing because the boy was still shrieking and writhing, in such terrible pain he was unaware that help had arrived, that the torment was finished. Marrin hurried to help. She held the boy down until Fescan managed to cut the thongs.

  “MARRIN, MARRIN.” Zelzony’s voice broke through her concentration and the clamor in the cavern.

  Marrin pressed a hand to her diaphragm, managed a croak, then, “What?”

  Listen. Skeen says don’t touch the cuts, flood them with water. What Eshkel was using, it has to be some kind of concentrated irritant. What? Not you, Marrin. Ah! Hatenzo has just this moment sent up a suggestion, sap of the eggetchuz weed. What? Yes. Yes. He says flooding is a good first step, then … you’ve got med kits with you, any puna salve? Bless the All-Wise. When you’ve dumped a bucket or two over the boy and can’t see any slime left, spread that salve on so thick no air can reach the wound, then get the boy to a Care Center fast.”

  Picarefy to Tibo. “Can you take the skip to the canyon floor without crashing it?”

  Tibo to Picarefy. “There’s a gravel flat about five hundred meters east of the hollow. That’s the only spot open enough.”

  Zelzony to Marrin. “As soon as you’ve got the boy quieted, send him south along the creek. About five hundred meters on there’s a gravel flat. The alien Tibo will be waiting there with a skip; he’ll fly Giulin to the University Care Center. Send Fescan and Uszer with them, tell them to keep talking to the boy, I don’t care what they say, just make sure he hears friendly voices all the way.”

  Zelzony to Selyays. “Giulin will be on his way north in twenty minutes or less, he’ll be at the Care Center before the hour is out. Did you hear that about the eggetchuz? Yes. About the Center …”

  Selyays to Zelzony. “Medic First Okkaman has been watching since the boy’s capture. I thought seeing what happened would give the medics at the Center a better idea what to expect.”

  Zelzony to Selyays. “All honor to your foresight, Kinra.”

  Zelzony to Marrin. “The Center is prepared for Giulin. I see the flooding and salve were a success.”

  Marrin to Zelzony. “He’s stopped screaming, but he still shudders when we touch him.”

  Zelzony to Marrin. “All the more important to get him out of there. Do you have enough agents to handle THEM?” (she spat out the word them as if she couldn’t bear to have it in her mouth).

  Marrin to Zelzony. “We’re going to basket them, given the Kinravaly’s permission; we don’t want suicides or escapes.”

  Zelzony to Kinravaly. “Kinravaly Rallen, Marrin requests she be allowed to basket Peeper, Laroul, Eshkel for the duration of the journey north to the Kinravaly Reserve. Her reasons, to prevent suicide, injury to her agents, any possibility of escape. The duration of the basketing would be less than four hours, the journey time from South Island to the Reserve.”

  Kinravaly to Zelzony. “Granted. The circumstances are extreme and extreme measures may be taken.”

  Zelzony to Marrin. “Basket them, then get them north.”

  Zelzony fell back in the chair, limp and flat as a discfish three days dead. “Haaaaah.”

  Soft laughter from Picarefy. Short silence. “Mind if I ask a question?”

  Zelzony signed, cracked an eye, dropped the lid again. “Ask.”

  “Basketing. What’s that?”

  “Turning a person into a bundle with staves and rope. Leaves the head free and nothing else.”

  “I see. Sounds uncomfortable.”

  “It is. More than uncomfortable. That’s why ortzin can’t use it without permission from Kinra or Kinravaly.”

  “Hungry?”

  Zelzony grimaced, yawned. “Tired. I might try some of that wine Skeen offered. By the way, where is she? I should be at the Reserve when Marrin arrives with the prisoners.”

  “I’ll call her. Would you like to stretch out some more? I can change the configuration of the chair.”

  “No, don’t do it or I’ll never get myself back on my feet.”

  HIATUS TO ALLOW FOR THE PAPERWORK AND OBFUSCATION THAT APPEAR TO BE AN INESCAPABLE PART OF ALL GOVERNMENTS DEALING WITH GROUPS LARGER THAN TEN. SPECIES AND DEGREE OF DEVELOPMENT ARE UNIMPORTANT, ALL THAT IS REQUIRED IS SOME FORM OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.

  The Kinravaly’s Garden. A warm golden autumn afternoon. Zuistro and Zelzony standing beside a small pond, throwing out bits of bread for some migrating waterfowl who’d stopped there for a moment’s rest, scattering handfuls of seeds and melon bits for the land fliers.

  “So it’s over.” Zuistro stood quietly a moment, her hand in one of the pockets of the many pocketed apron she was wearing. Her eyes narrowed to laughing slits, her head was back, turned slightly toward Zelzony.

  “Over, hah! I’ve a year’s worth of papers on my deak waiting to be read and signed.”

  “Saa saa, love, be glad you don’t have to write them.” Zuistro began breaking up a bun and tossing the bits onto the water. “Or have to face Sulleggen in a snit.”

  Zelzony crumpled her face into a grimace of distaste. “She’s not in a believing mood?”

  “Not half.” Zuistro dropped onto a boulder roughly chiseled into a seat, dipped into another pocket and began scattering seed. “I had to call in Hatenzo and Tyomfin and just about tie her in the chair to make her watch the recordings of her son and his friends. Saa saa, that’s not a scene I want to repeat. She foamed at the mouth and yelled fake at us.” Zuistro sighed, stretched out her legs, wiggled her toes. “We showed her your reports and the imager prints of what they were doing to Giulin. More fakes. We showed her the confessions Eshkel and Laroul wrote. All lies. Peeper was a victim not the leader, Peeper was seduced by those two, he was innocent, he wasn’t even there, it was all trickery. You and your ortzin were corrupt and probably did it yourselves and dragged Peeper in to blame it on. Well, I don’t need to go on. She’s going to fight us, Zeli. I was afraid of that. It’s going to be messy.”

  “Mmf.” Zelzony dropped to a squat beside Zuistro’s knee. “What are the aliens doing? Nothing about them has seeped into my offices.”

  “Waiting. I heard from Lipitero yesterday. They’ve had a message from the other starship, it’s in the Veil, on its way here. Supposed to arrive around ten days from now.”

  “All-Wise! Zo, let me off this. I’ve got tons of work, there’s no way I can be ready to leave. Ten days, ay yah, there’s no way.”

  “Borrentye can handle it, it’s slogging flack work from now on. You know that as well as I.”

  “Sulleggen …”

  “Is my problem. What is it really, Zeli?”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Why?”

  “Aaaah, a thousand things, Zo. I don’t … I … don’t … LIKE … them, Zo. I don’t trust them. They make me feel … I don’t know … perhaps … like a stupid child. Like a speaker in the middle of signing deaf. Gestures. What do they mean? I keep thinking every twitch means something, I keep thinking … I keep thinking they’re saying things a
bout me knowing I won’t catch it, they’re planning things … and I’m dragged along like a baby in a carryweb … helpless … I loathe it, Zo. I’m angry all the time. Knots in my belly and acid in my mouth. Languages. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Me swimming in them understanding nothing, incapable of understanding. Like a yaut on a leash.”

  “Ah, Zeli, Zeli, give yourself time, give yourself credit, believe me, I understand. Oh, yes. I haven’t worked with them as closely as you, my dear, but I’ve rubbed against that unthinking arrogance of theirs. I have sat and listened to Skeen explaining something, skipping ahead in such long leaps I’m left so far behind I can’t even ask questions, and sitting some more while she does it over again in careful babytalk. Trying to read her when I haven’t a smell of what kind of world bred her. The others can be worse, harder to read, even Lipitero though she’s Ykx. Perhaps because she’s Ykx, but different. Expectation continually denied. I wonder and I worry about the thousand we’re sending with her. Zeli, do you think it’s easy for me, sending you out like this? There’s no one else who can do the job, my dear. No one. Will it help if I send an aide with you?”

  Zelzony pulled a handful of seed from the pouch she carried, gazed at it a moment, let the seeds trickle through her fingers, then brushed her hands together. Mouth twisted in a wry grin, she looked up at Zuistro. “Two?”

  Zuistro smiled affectionately down at her. “Why not. Two it is. You want to choose them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very definite about it.”