Skeen's Return

by Clayton, Jo;

  “To fight in your place. Not beside you.”

  “Anything to complicate matters. Games, tchah!” She heard herself and laughed. “I … no, I can’t explain, not without telling you the story of my life. So. Hested Vanker. How does he fight?”

  Briony folded her hands, looked inward, spoke with soft non-emphasis. “A challenge lasts three days standard, starting for you the moment you walk out the door. While it’s on, you’ll not be permitted to leave Sundari. Skeen can’t help you that way, not if she wants to keep her welcome here and in the other Pits. He knows Sundari, every bubble of it. He has vermin who’ll make sure he knows where you are every minute. When he’s ready, he chooses the time, he chooses the place. You can’t hide and you can’t run. He favors his right side just a little, will swing right more often than left, but he knows that and compensates. I’ve seen him sucker at least two men with that weakness. He is very very good, despina. Strong. Fast. Don’t judge him by what you saw here. He might be a stupid clown most of the time, but he’s brilliant when he fights.”

  “The thing to do, then, is shake him loose from his patterns. Make him come at me before he’s ready.”

  “Despina, believe me, that’s been tried. Over and over.”

  “My name’s Timka. Call me Ti. Tell me his favorite weapons.”

  “His hands. Anything. For women like you that he doesn’t want to damage before he’s ready, a tangler.”

  “Good.” Timka giggled. “Be somewhere you can see his face when he tries that on me. If he gets a chance to.” She touched the pot. “Cold. I’d like another pot, please. Um … could you make a call for me? Without getting yourself in trouble?”

  “Of course, despina. Xochimiyl’s pleasure. If you prefer it, I can have a com brought to the table.”

  “Oh.” Timka shook her head. “I am not accustomed to this … this sort of life. How much is it going to cost me?”

  “Nothing, despina. This is Xochimiyl’s lagniappe. If you wish, you can tip the person who brings the com, a one perc is sufficient, but a tip is not necessary.”

  “Um … how private are these coms?”

  Again Briony chewed on her lip, her face wrinkled as she weighed her priorities. She fixed her eyes intently on Timka, brushed her forefinger lightly across her mouth. “Xochimiyl provides nothing but the best, despina,” she said in her lovely liquid business voice.

  “I see. Skeen should still be at the Buzzard’s Roost and even if she isn’t, they’ll probably know where to find her.” She stopped talking as the boy approached with the com and connected it for them, she gave him a chip and watched him flow off with the driftway. “Would you work this thing for me? Where I come from, a needle’s complicated technology.”

  “Skeen?”

  “What is it, Ti?” The tiny face in the image looked impatient.

  Timka went hastily through the events of the past half hour, finished, “I thought you ought to know. In case of complications.”

  “You’ve got it worked out?”

  “Yes. I think so. Shouldn’t take long. Briony says it’s probably a tangler.”

  A chopped-off laugh, then the head turned to someone off screen, then Skeen was speaking again. “There’s no hurry, Ti. Wait where you are say five, six minutes more. I’m still tied up here a while, but I’d like Tibo there. As you said, in case of complications, showing a friend’s face, that sort of thing. Um, Buzzard says be careful, Vanker’s tricky. But he doesn’t know you, does he.” Another laugh. “Don’t make a fool of me, hmm? … and get yourself killed.”

  “I’ll try not.”

  Timka sipped at the tea, savoring the taste of it and the warmth that spread through her body; the gentle drift of the island was like a cradle, rocking her to sleep. Briony fidgeted; she maintained her professional smile, but it was beginning to look strained. “Weapons,” she said suddenly. “Ti, how are you armed?”

  Timka poured herself more tea. “I’m not,” she said, “I’m going with what I was … born with.” She closed her eyes, consulted her internal timeclock. “Time is.” She got to her feet. “Do me a favor,” she said, “take care of my clothes, please.” She unlatched the moneybelt and laid it on the table, then proceeded to strip to her skin, folding everything neatly, piling shirt and trousers beside the belt, laying her boots across them. “Maybe you could bring them to the atrium in a bit?”

  Briony surged to her feet, knocking with atypical clumsiness against the table. “Ti!”

  Timka ran her fingers through her black curls, fluffing them out from her head. “I parade out in front like this, yelling for Vanker to come get me, you think he can ignore that? Little naked woman calling him names, making a fool of him. My time, my place, Briony.” With a wave of her hand she stepped onto the driftway and let it carry her toward the exit.

  No one spoke though eyes followed her and after a short interval there was a building mutter of voices and the Islands began emptying onto the driftways. Timka ignored her followers; she felt good, alive. She laughed aloud, laughed again as the Islands echoed her joy, broke off, suddenly disconcerted by her reaction to the prospect of killing a man. Tchah, she told herself, this isn’t your doing, besides he owes the Lifefire more than one death according to what Briony said. Calmly, Ti-cat, you’re getting above yourself. Remember the other thing she said, he’s brilliant when it comes to a fight. Idiot-savant. Uh-huh. Definitely not brilliant otherwise. No no, forget that, my girl, don’t you be stupid too, borrow some of Skeen’s caution. What are you going to do if he ignores you? He can’t. Not him. What if he does? I’ll think about that when it happens.

  Timka strolled into the street, senses alert. She’d been busy practicing the mind-skills she’d neglected. Perhaps because she’d been living with Nemin so long, maybe because she was just better than most at the Min outreach, she’d found she could keep track of Nemin almost as well as Min—if she knew the Nemin and he (or she) was less than a kilometer off. Tibo was somewhere around, interested but not apprehensive. He wasn’t all that fond of her anyway and only cared what happened to her because Skeen would. She strained harder, caught whiffs of Vanker. He was close, inside one of the buildings that looked onto Starlong Way. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Eh, Vanker, where you hiding?” she yelled, and went on to describe in defamatory terms his person, character and probable failings in the sack. The street emptied rapidly before her. She heard gasps then laughter as the growing crowd of watchers understood she’d come to meet Hested Vanker not only unarmed but naked.

  He stepped into the street before her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She measured the distance between them, smiled with satisfaction. He thought he was far enough off to be out of her reach and close enough for his tangler to take her when he was ready to use it. “What? You were the one who called challenge on me. I’ve come to answer you, what else?”

  “You’re surrendering?”

  “Certainly not. If you want me, see if you can take me.”

  He looked around, moved farther out into the empty street, stopping where he could keep an eye on the gathering crowd. “You’re forfeit if someone helps you.”

  “If you don’t want to fight me, I’ll understand,” she said, loud enough so several watchers heard it and sniggered softly. “I don’t need help, pretty man. Is there anything special you want done with your body?”

  He forced a grin. “I’ll tell you that when I’ve got you in my bed.”

  “I won’t be hearing you then, I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  More laughter, louder laughter.

  He reddened, but didn’t let it prod him into hurrying. His body seemed to grow denser, increase its energy tenfold, as he shifted his balance.

  She waited, arms hanging loosely at her sides, watching him warily, beginning to understand a little of what Briony had meant.

  His hand moved to his belt, his arm snapped out, the sticky net of the tangler came at her driven by the power of his arm and the whiplas
h of the stock.

  And passed through her as she shifted, the net too coarse to trap her S’yer. Timka cat-weasel leaped at him, catching him a fraction off-balance, though he was almost too fast for her, turning the stumble when the net didn’t catch into a push to his right that would have avoided her claws if Briony hadn’t warned her about his tendency. Ignoring the knife that slapped into his hand, she took out his belly with her hind claws, his throat with her foreclaws and fell off him, the knife sunk to the hilt in her side. Someone ran from the crowd, pulled the knife away, she shifted back to Pallah, the wound closing over as she completed the change.

  Tibo was crouching beside Vanker, wiping the blade on his shirt. With an elegant bow, he presented it to her, hilt first.

  She laughed, sketched a naked curtsy, took the knife. “Thanks,” she said. “Anything I should do about that?” She waved at the corpse.

  “Garbage ’bots will clear it away.” He touched the body with the toe of his boot. “Time that happened. Too bad, though, that you had to blow your edge on Hested Vanker.” He looked her over, raised a brow. “Going to stay like that?”

  All around them credit chips were changing hands. The hush during the two breaths the fight lasted was broken by a rising murmur of comment as the watchers began to disperse. They left a large clear space about her and Tibo, went back to work and play as if what had happened was so common an occurrence it didn’t warrant any excessive excitement. Briony came hesitantly toward them, carrying Timka’s clothing. “I thought you might want these.…”

  “Oh, yes. Thanks. Tibo, Briony, Briony, Tibo.” She took the shirt, put it on, smoothed the closures together, chuckled. “See what I told you, he didn’t know what he was taking on.” She stepped into the trousers, pulled them up.

  Briony handed her the money belt. “They know you now,” she murmured. “Be careful, Ti.”

  “I’m always careful.” Timka patted her arm. “That bit about going to his right, that was very useful. Thanks.”

  “I have my pride,” Briony said softly, “what I sell should be worth the price.” She knelt, took the left boot. “Raise your foot.”

  TIBO AND HIS MUM.

  or

  PROSPECTING FOR GOSSIP, PAST AND FUTURE.

  The old woman looked up. Bright blue eyes held a sky-wide life in them. The ananiles had lost their kick for her and age sat on her body like a pleating iron, but nothing age could do touched the spirit inside the shriveling flesh. “Tibo.”

  “Ta, Mum.” He kicked an ottoman across the silky rug (twenty years ago it would have brought a small fortune, now it was so worn from the old woman’s broad bare feet and the few privileged others she let visit her here no one would pay a ten perc chip for it). Some while back when Tibo was beginning to learn the tumbler’s trade and she was one of his several mums, she divorced the family to marry one of the passengers on the Worldship the extended family was hired to. It was a fairly amicable divorce and she’d never lost her fondness for the children she had co-mothered, especially Tibo who was born the same time as the daughter the family talked her into having though she was old for it, Tibo who suckled at her breast when his body-mother was busy reading the cards for the passengers.

  “I hear you and Skeen have got yourselves a new mouser. A herd of folk in the Bubbles owes that cat a blessing and I won’t say I’m not one of them.”

  “Her name is Timka, Mum.”

  “Hmm. Pretty thing. Is it your branching out or Skeen or maybe the both of you?”

  “None of your business, Mum.”

  “When you’re old as I am, Tib, everything’s your business.”

  “Enjoy yourself, then. We’re too tame for you.”

  “So you are, Tib. So you are.” She touched a delicate china bell with the tip of her forefinger, producing a small ting. Her companion and nurse, a squat furry Abrushin named Henrietta came padding in and without a word set out a lush tea on the table beside Mamarana’s chair, then went padding out again, never a sign she saw Tibo sitting there.

  “That’s new, isn’t it?” He nodded at the porcelain tea pot and the two bowls, pale blue with a darker blue pattern, thin as paper and as translucent. “Nice.”

  “Your brother Katsif stopped by a few months back. He gave it to me.”

  “From the look of that, he’s doing well.”

  “Well enough. Though he hasn’t got your flare, Tib, he’ll never have Great Hounds like Abel Cidder sniffing after him.”

  “It’s a distinction we can do without, Skeen and me.”

  “Skeen.” She sniffed. “So pour the tea and tell me what you’ve come for, Tib.”

  “To delight in your blue eyes, Mamarana, and to drink your fine tea.”

  “Hah! About the tea I don’t know, as for eyes, you obviously prefer them yellow. Cat-eyes. Though I hear your pet’s eyes are green.”

  “No pet of mine, no pet at all.”

  “I suppose that answers my question. Far too tame, my Tib. How’s Skeen?”

  “Thriving.”

  “You going to tell me the story behind this?”

  “Next time I come through Sundari. Can’t now, not mine.”

  “Ga’houbal came sniffing round here a while back. One of Cidder’s noses. I hear the Undying has cut Cidder loose from all duties but chasing Skeen. One of these days he’s going to catch up with her.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Me, I’ll back Skeen. The only way he’ll catch her is she wants him to. He might have more men and ships, but she’s trickier.”

  “Sometimes. And sometimes she’s moon-foolish and you know it. Forget Skeen. Out with it, Tib. Do I have to call Henrietta to squeeze what you’re after out of you?”

  “Rostico Burn.”

  “What about Rostico Burn?”

  “Need to find him.”

  “You?”

  “Me. Skeen. What difference does it make. It’s business.”

  “Hers.”

  “Mum, you’re stubborn as a … Ours. Hers and mine.”

  “Your cat friend involved?”

  “Some.”

  “Rostico Burn. Hmm. He’s not on Sundari. Been gone a little more than two years.”

  “Rooning, smuggling, thieving, what?”

  “Mostly what, I suppose. He’s a various sort. Turns his hand to what comes up.”

  “Two years. That’s a long job. You hear of him touching down at another Pit?”

  “Who’s to say I asked.”

  “Well?”

  “So I was interested. Coming out of nowhere like that. A boy like that. So I like to keep track of crazy kids.”

  “Mamarana spins her web and nothing nothing nothing escapes her.” He touched her knee, grinned affectionately at her.

  “Idiot. No more brains than your father, lovely man that he was. Rostico Burn. Clever boy. Talked a lot but never said much.”

  “So the Buzzard said. There’s always Mala Fortuna. Maybe he had to do some fast dancing and his foot slipped.”

  “Like someone here who I could name but won’t. This urgent?”

  “So so. No hurry, but there’s a deadline out there waiting for us.”

  “So give me five days. If I don’t know by then, no one can find out. And next time you come, bring that little cat with you. Tiny thing. She sure surprised Vanker. Smoosher Pete had his imager flaking and it’s been on the com half a dozen times since. Trust that man to get the fots, it has to be a Talent, no man has that much luck come honestly. That cat suckered Vanker. Look out she don’t sucker you. You’re not going to tell me where you found her?”

  “Ask Skeen, her story.”

  “You’re getting bad as her, Tib. Zipper mouth. I’ll ask that cat. Maybe she’ll know how to treat a poor old woman.”

  “Old? Mamarana, you’ll still be younger than me when you’re dead ten years.”

  “Five days, you hear? And bring your harem or you’ll hear nothing from me. Not a word. Listen how terrible I sound. Your loving Mum and I have to bribe you to bring you
r women to see me. Ay ay, oh, Tib.” She giggled. “Go away, Tib. My secrets are mine and so they stay. Five days. And bring Skeen too so we can bicker some. Clears out my sinuses. And that cat so I can tease out of her where she comes from. Five days. No sooner and not a heartbeat longer.”

  He got to his feet, kissed her wrinkled cheek. It seemed to birth more wrinkles as he watched. She was close to three hundred now, already long past the two-fifty promised by the ananile drugs. Praise whatever ruled this universe, she kept a mind as sharp as her spirit was young. She would not last much longer, though, he knew that at the pit of his stomach. And the hole she’d leave in his life was too big for anyone else to fill, even Skeen. But he knew too, she looked forward to that approaching end with a serenity he couldn’t understand. The last time he visited her she tried to explain it to him, but her explanation was just a string of words, he couldn’t make sense out of them. I’ve enjoyed my life, she said, there’s a lot of things I haven’t seen or done, but most of them I’ve run through my dreams so I don’t need to do them. That isn’t it, though. This is. I’m ready. When fruit is ready, it falls. I’m ready. Not pushing for, not pushing against, just waiting.

  Tibo found Skeen in the Junker’s Bar talking now and then with the cyborg bartender who’d added another bit of hardware to his body, a finger laser on his left hand, just hot enough to heat up a drink if that was what the customer wanted, or boil an egg inside its shell, or char letters into wet paper napkins, which was what he was showing Skeen at that moment. Skeen was drinking tonic water; she liked the bitter bite of it when she didn’t want anything stronger. He settled on the stool beside her. “Ta, Flake,” he said. “Stir me up a tod.”

  “Eh, Tib. Coming up.”

  “How’s the mum, Tib?” Skeen sipped at the tonic, the ice shifting in a tumble of clicks.

  “Older.” He gloomed at the bar. “You can watch wrinkles adding on, Skeen, I swear she turned up a dozen more while I was there.”

  Skeen patted his hand. “She’s a tough old bird, Tib. She’ll last longer than you think.”