Méarana left Billy Chins on Charming Moon with some misgiving, but comforted herself with the thought that if he had survived among the’ Loons, he could last a week or so in the relatively benign Men’s Room. He would have to pay the genetic tariff, but the harper suspected he would enjoy it.
She dropped to Boditown, capital of the Nest of Boditsya, where the Wildman was in custody. Being a curiosity as well as a prisoner, access was relatively easy to obtain, even for touristas. Méarana learned he was housed in Josang Prison, called the prison and, using her Kennel chit to get past an underling, spoke with the Warder herself. During the visi-phone conversation, she noted a display of crystal animals on the shelf behind the Warder’s desk, and so before visiting the prison in person, she purchased in an import shop a lovely crystal horse made by Wofford and Beale on New Eireann. Officially, it was not a bribe, but it did smooth the way to the Visitors’ Room.
The Visitors’ Room was entered through the main offices on Josang Avenue, a bustling thoroughfare with self-directed ground traffic. Méarana had not seen the insides of many prisons, and those only on sims and immersions, but she had not expected a brightly lit and tastefully decorated waiting room done in earth tones and furnished wth planters and chairs and tables. Bowls of patchouli and fragrant pit-roses from the Thatch Mountains gave the room a less-than-incarcerating air. The chairs were comfortable and there were no barriers between visitors and prisoners.
Méarana turned to her escort. “Not exactly escape-proof.”
The Amazon sergeant laughed. “Where on Boldly Go could he hide?”
They brought him in a few minutes later. Teodorq Nagarajan was every bit as impressive in person as he had been in the holoflat. The raven hair, the broad, white smile, the smoothly muscled chest and arms, the impression of sheer animal power very nearly overwhelmed. What she had not expected was that he would be so short. He stood at only five feet and five thumbs, a head shorter than Méarana.
Nagarajan was bare-chested and walked with a panther’s grace. Each deltoid had been tattooed with a man’s head whose beard flowed past the elbow. His pectorals were likewise adorned, though with a dragon and a tiger. When he turned—and Méarana suspected his turning was meant for display—he revealed a pair of oversized cat’s eyes on his scapulas. Thus adorned, he would appear ferocious in attack, and vigilant to any who approached from the rear.
His jailors had not taken his medallion from him, for it dangled on its golden chain, flanked by flaming dragon and growling tiger. The disc seemed to rest cupped between dragon’s claw upholding it and tiger’s paw protecting it.
The barbarian paused in the doorway, assessed the tactical situation, and eyed Méarana and the Amazon in almost a tactile manner. Then he swaggered to one of the chairs and flung himself into it, throwing his right leg over the chair arm, and propping up his chin with his left arm. “Awright, babe,” he said in passable Gaelactic. “Ain’t no bed in this room, so yuh ain’t here for that. Too bad. Dames here, they think looking purty is a crime, so yuh be the first looker I seen. Hey! We could do it in one of these here chairs, if yuh like.”
Méarana smiled. “No, thank you.”
“Hey, don’t mention it. After all, if yuh don’t ask…”
The Amazon chuckled. “You see what they’re like. That’s why we keep them off the planet.”
Méarana did not want to argue with the escort. “I wonder if he even knows why he is here.”
The Wildman grinned. “I stole the Queen’s girdle.”
“What!”
The Amazon growled. “And you set foot on the Holy Motherland.”
Nagarajan twisted in the chair so that he could see the sergeant. “Well, I couldn’t very well steal the girdle without coming planetside, now could I?”
Méarana shook her head. “Why?”
“The girldle? Oh, me and this alfven-tech on the Gopher Broke—that’s a trade ship I hitched a ride on. He told me about some ancient hero name of Herglee what pulled off these ten stunts. Which I told him doing the scuppers below the engines to pay my passage qualified as cleaning out some old horse stable. Well, another stunt was stealing this queen’s girdle. So I said, big deal; and he said, so’s why’n’t you do it; and one thing led to another, and…” He spread his arms wide. “Here I am.” He grinned and added, “We was drinking at the time.”
“You mean you took a bet with a stranger to steal the Queen’s girdle?”
“Well, it’s more like one of them belts wrasslin’ champeens wear; but…Yeah.”
He was so matter-of-fact about it that Méarana decided not to pursue the matter. “How are they treating you here?”
“Not too bad. Ol’ Johnson’s getting a workout, but after a while it’s hard to keep up.” Snicker. “Problem is, they’s all so you-gee-ell-why.”
Méarana thought she picked up about half his dialect. In some ways, it was worse than Billy’s patois. “Who is Johnson?” she asked.
Nagarajan winked and fondled his crotch. The Amazon laughed and when Méarana looked her way, the sergeant explained, “He talks about his sperm-ejector in the third person.”
And the sergeant distanced it with technical terms, but that wasn’t her business. “I notice you wear a rather striking medallion,” she said to the prisoner. “May I see it?”
The door opened behind her and the two news faces entered with their female assistants. They took seats to the side and studied their note-screens and discussed image angles and lighting while they waited for their turn. From their hesitant speech, Méarana deduced that they were ‘facing with their male technical crews on Charming Moon, and had to wait four beats for the lightspeed lag. To the harper’s surprise, the door opened again and Dame Teffna bint Howard also entered.
“Oh! You were so right, Jwana,” the blue-garbed woman purred. “He is a hunk.”
Nagarajan leaned toward Méarana and spoke as if they were old friends. “That must be one ugly babe.”
“Why so, sahb Nagarajan?”
“Hey, call me Teddy. Only one reason for a gal to cover herself up like that.”
“She might prefer to hide her beauty to avoid harassment.”
The Wildman considered that possibility. “One buck gets yuh five yer wrong. Smart money’s on ugly.”
Considering what had happened the last time Nagarajan had made a bet, Méarana was not about to take him up on it. He was quite capable of leaping the chairs and disrobing the Angletar dame on the spot. She did not ask him what a “buck” was. “I was wondering where you had gotten that medallion.”
Of all the questions the Wildman expected to be asked, that one seemed pretty far down the list. He lifted the medallion and studied it as if he had never seen it before. The disc was ruby red and yellow amethysts had been worked into it like the flames of a fire, reaching up around and through it. Minute diamond dust suggested sparks when the light caught it. “This? I taken it off a dead Nyaka warrior.”
“Ah. And do you know where he got it?”
The massive shoulders shrugged. “Uh, no? He was dead?”
“You’re sure.”
“I killed him, didn’t I? They stay dead when I do that.”
“Where do these Nyakas live?”
“Some boonie planet out in the Burnt-Over District. Why you so interested?”
“Do you know the name of the planet, or how to get there?”
Nagarajan’s hand shot out like lightning, and seized hold of the leather thong by which Méarana’s own medallion hung.
But Méarana was not called Swiftfingers for no good cause, and her knife had leapt from its sleeve and hovered now underfisted a scant thumbwidth from the Wildman’s left eye.
Dame Teffna and the two news crews fell silent. The Amazon sergeant stood away from the wall and her hand had dropped to her stunner. But she made no move to draw it.
A frozen moment passed. Then a smile blossomed on Nagarajan’s face. “No harm, Sarge. The lady and me was just showing off our jewelry.” He
tucked the medallion back into Méarana’s blouse. He had barely glanced at it, but the harper suspected he had examined it quite carefully in that instant. He was a man quick with his senses. He smiled again, catlike. “Yuh need to put the killer in your eye,” he murmured so she alone could hear. “A man sees in your eye that yuh ain’t gonna stick him first, he maybe feels too cocky. I ain’t no enemy, so I tell yuh this. Never threaten your enemy and let him be. Better t’ just let him be and forget the threats.”
Méarana made the knife disappear. Nagarajan sat back in his chair. The leg once more swung over the chair arm. “So, you come in from the District, too?” he continued in a low voice. “An’ now you can’t find your way back? No worries. I got all the roads mem’rized.” He tapped his temple with a finger like a tent peg. “Oh, wait. One problemo. The memory’s inside my head, which is gonna get lopped off the next couple days. That’s why those ghouls…” He meant the news faces. “…come to gawk. Heads roll around Lafrontera like bowling balls, but when is it a head so handsome as mine?”
“I’m surprised they haven’t shortened you already,” said Méarana. “Your modesty is hard to take.”
Nagarajan guffawed and slapped the arm of the chair. “But they still wanna know what I done with the Queen’s girdle, which I ain’t telling. An’ no, before you ask, they won’t let me go if’n I do. But they’re getting tired of asking, and are just about ready to cut things short, so to speak. Tell yuh what. You’re a harper by your nails. I want yuh to sing my story, so I don’t die forever. Come back tomorrow after these ghouls are done and I tell yuh chapter an’ verse on the Exploit of the Girdle.”
“And you’ll tell me how to find the source of these medallions?”
The barbarian smiled. “Whaddaya think?”
When Méarana stood to leave, Dame Teffna did, too. She embraced each of the news faces, bidding each good fortune with their interviews. “Ta,” she said, “I shan’t stay about to have that beast sticking his paw between my breasts! My dear,” she purred to the harper as she caught up, “that must have been simply awful.”
On Josang Avenue, Méarana hailed a jitney, one of the open-sided electric cars that cruised the streets of Boditown. “Are you staying at the Hotel Clytemnestra?” Teffna asked. “May I share the taxi? Oh, thank you.” She lowered herself onto the bench beside the harper and snapped open a fan hand-painted with chrysanthemums and waved it briskly before the grill in her hood. “Terribly arid here. Would you like some lotion? This heat cannot be good for your skin.”
“I imagine,” said Méarana dryly, “that it is hotter in there than it is out here.”
The taxi driver had just settled into her seat and, hearing this remark, barked a short laugh. “One gold quarter-piece,” she said. “For the both of you together.”
Méarana opened the scrip belted to her waist, but Dame Teffna laid a hand on her wrist. “Do pa’don me, dear.” Then to the driver, “Twenty minims in Venishànghai ducats, or three-tenths of a Gladiola Bill.”
The driver made a face. “I lose on the arbitrage, ladies. Not enough foreign currency to make it worthwhile. Half a ducat. I won’t take Bills.”
“Half a ducat! My dear, that is terribly steep. Perhaps thirty minims five.”
The driver considered that. “You could walk,” she suggested.
Teffna sighed. “Oh, very well. Forty. And done.”
“Forty each,” said the driver.
The Angletaran laughed. “Done.”
The taxi jerked away from the curb and headed east on Josang. “So, you went in to see the foreign bike, did you?” the driver said conversationally. “He pretty as he looks on the news-bank? No wonder everyone wants to ‘visit’ with him. They say Wildmen have bigger sperm ejectors than most bikes. That true?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Méarana. “I went there to interview him.”
“Interview,” said the driver. “That what they call it on your world? Where you from, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“Dangchao,” said the harper.
“Angletar,” said the borked woman.
“Never heard of them. How do you handle bikes there?”
“I’m sorry,” said Méarana. “Do you mean ‘men’?”
“Is that the Gaelactic word? I guess so.”
“On Angletar, we keep them in club houses,” said Dame Teffna.
“Ours are free-range,” Méarana explained simply.
Dame Teffna turned to her. “Oh, you can’t let them run loose, dear. You must understand the distinct duties of the two sexes. Men talk about God and politics, and kill each other now and then—usually because of the talk. Women keep everyone fed and laugh at the men. That’s why we wear these borkes—so they can’t see us laughing.”
Boldly Go did not depend on tourism. Consequently, no swarm of functionaries greeted them at the hotel, and there was an interval when Méarana and Teffna stood alone in the hotel’s drop-off area. Méarana turned to the other woman and spoke through clenched teeth.
“Donovan, have you lost what little of your mind you have left?”
The Angletaran managed somehow to convey an attitude of social offense without a single part of her body showing. It was all in the posture and in the tone of voice. “What on Earth are you talking about?”
“What ‘on Earth’? Who talks like that? Why else hide under that, that body-tent? It’s an obvious way to conceal yourself.”
“A little too obvious, wouldn’t you say?” the dame murmured. “Do you believe them so obtuse that they would not ‘check under the hood’?” And so saying, the dame lifted the face-veil of her borke.
And the face was undeniably female: the cheeks were fuller and more rounded; the forehead vertical and lacking in brow bossing. The eyebrows were arched and sat above the brow ridge rather than on it. And though the mouth was wider and the chin more square than was the female norm, the diversity of humankind throughout the Spiral Arm more than covered such variations. Almost, Méarana apologized.
Except that the face was also undeniably Donovan’s. If Donovan had a sister, she would look like this. Or, more accurately, if he had a crazy old aunt in the attic. Teffna waited with an expression very much like the Fudir’s smirk for the harper to comment.
Méarana closed her eyes and took in a long, slow breath. “I saved myself five ‘bucks,’ anyway. What if they ‘look in the trunk’?”
“What do you usually find stashed away in the boot,” said the dame, lowering her face-veil once more. “Rusted old tools.”
Dame Teffna had scoured her hotel room for intrusive devices upon checking in and did so again. “No reason to suppose the authorities have any interest in ‘Teffna,’” she said, “so the odds are against the room being bugged, but I’d rather learn that precautions were unneeded than to learn that they were.”
It was a single room, tastefully done, but in that perfunctory manner that catered only to unmindful businesss travelers. There was a bed, a desk with an interface and holostage. A comfortable desk chair and a more comfortable reading chair with a gooseneck screen. A copy of the local holy book. Méarana waited until the cleansing ritual was completed before blurting out, “How did you manage it?”
Teffna sat on the edge of the bed. “You left a trail, dear. I checked with ticketing and…”
“No. I mean…this.” She waved a hand at her face. “If I hadn’t already known Donovan, I’d never have seen the resemblance.”
“Oh. He and the Fudir handed over control. What else could they have done?”
“But…Who are you?”
“They call me the Silky Voice. You can call me Donna, if you like. It’s a title women use on Angletar and would cover nicely if you slip up.”
“So, how did you…” She waved her hand again.
“Oh…” She touched her forehead in the center. “I live straight back, in an apartment the size of an almond—the hypothalamus. I have control of the glandular system, and that regulates basic drives and emotions, p
romotes growth and sexual identity, controls body temperature, assists in the repair of broken tissue, and helps generate energy. I’m the nurse.”
“‘Promotes sexual identity’” Méarana suggested.
Donna spread her arms in a familiar gesture. “Those who chopped up Donovan’s brain thought there might be call for an agent’s seductive side. Honey, they got me.”
“You do sound more seductive than Donovan,” Méarana allowed.
“The fourth Tyrant of Valency sounded more seductive than Donovan. I don’t mean sexual seduction. For various reasons, I couldn’t pull that off. I mean the sort of thing that your mother was so good at. Persuading people, getting them to go along with her plans.”
“I would have said your features were ‘strong’ or ‘handsome.’”
“My dear, you tell a woman that when you have no finer adjectives on hand. There’s an enzyme that converts testosterone to estradiol. Certain fatty tissues swell or shrink, but the bones don’t change. So a bit of water retention obscures the brow ridge and moves the eyebrows north. The laryngeal prominence softens because the angle of the cartilage shifts. The testicles, ah…I believe ‘recede’ is the proper term; but they’re still there. Look, do you really want to know all this? It took several days of stretching and swelling and contraction; and it hurt, a lot.”
“And here you are. I take it you read the story of the Treasure Fleet.”
“‘…And so the Fleet departed,’” Teffna recited, “‘stuffed with all the wonders of the Commonwealth, her berths filled with the sleeping settlers, carrying the hopes of all true sons of Terra. They set their course on the Rigel Run and far-off California. But though the loyal folk of the Commonwealth waited and waited, nothing was ever heard from them again; and in the end the Commonwealth submitted.’ But the Commonwealth was long dead when that was written down on Friesing’s World. Why do you think it is any more than a fable?”
“Because you were ready to give up, and now you’re here.”
Up Jim River Page 24