by Jo Clayton
My worktable is a built-up slab of congel wood. Tough, that wood, takes a molecular edge to work it, but it lasts forever; a benefit to living on Telffer, you pay in blood for congel offworld. Mottled medium brown with patches of gold like a pale tortoiseshell.
Pretty stuff, which is a good thing because it won’t take stain any way you try it and even paint peels off, something about the oil, they say. I had the gouges I was using laid out on a patch of leather close to hand, the tool kit beside it, the frame I was working on set in padded clamps, the finished harps down at the far end waiting for Shadith to try them.
Butterflies flittered about, lighting on the thornflowers, feeding on their pollen; a sight to add pleasure to the day, but it meant I’d got worms in the wood and I was going to have to fumigate the yard. There were quilos squealing in the viuvars. Quilos are furry mats with skinny black legs, six of them, and deft little black fingers on their paws. Never been able to find any sign of eyes, ears or nose on them, though they’re fine gliders and can skitter about on the ground like drops of water on a greased griddle. They drive the cats crazy, how can you prowl downwind of a thing that’s got no nose or chase something that can switch direction without caring which end is front? I had five cats last time I counted and they’re all neutered, so that should be that, but none of them are black and two days ago I saw this black body creeping low to the ground, going after a quilo who was chewing on a beetle it picked off a thornbush, it’s why I tolerate a few of the things about, they keep the bug population down. I threw a chunk of wood at the cat and it streaked off. A young black tom. Pels says he thinks there’s something mystical about black toms, there’s never an assemblage of cats without one of them showing up, he says he’s convinced they’re born out of the collective unconscious of cats, structures of unbridled libido created to assuage cat lust. He may be right.
Pels kurk-Orso. Let’s see. He’s my com off and aux pilot. He’s got a thing with plants and keeps my Slancy green; he’s heavyworld born and bred, Mevvyaurang; not many have heard of it, Aurrangers aren’t much for company or traveling. 2.85 g. Where they have three sexes. Sperm carrier (Rau), seed carrier (Arra), womb-nurse (Maung). He’s Rau. Hmm. There’s a heavy burden he has to bear. Drives him into craziness sometimes. Females of every sentient species I’ve come across, even the reptilids, want to cuddle him, they all think he’s devastatingly cute. Fluffy little teddy bear with big brown eyes. Barely up to my belt which is small even among his own people. Talking about the Aurrangers, they’re agoraphobes in a big way, live in huddles underground. Funny, they’re frightened of just about everything and they’re the best damn predators I’ve met. You ought to see Pels stalking something. That fuzz of his isn’t fur at all, when he’s up for hunting, it kicks over into a shifting camouflage that beats hell out of a chameleon web. Thing is, he was born a misfit, always going out on the surface, fascinated by space and the stars that gave the night sky a frosty sheen; he was different enough to be miserable with his own people. He applied for a work-study grant to University and got it, being very very bright, but once he got his degree, with an honors list a km long, no one took him seriously enough to hire him. He was too damn cute.
When his money ran out, he had a choice between scavenging for scraps and a life of little crimes or living in luxury as a family pet. He was a reasonably competent burglar by the time I put my Slancy Orza into orbit park over Admin/University.
I was finishing a job for some xenobiologists, delivering a cargo of rare plants. The com off I had on that trip, she had a sweet paper trail and was a golden goddess for looks, but she was a whiner. Kumari and me, we came close to strangling her, but we held off till we reached University. We fired her without recommendation; it was safer than pushing her out a lock if not so satisfying. We turned over the plants and went out to celebrate our freedom from that rockdrill whine.
Sometime round dawn we got tangled up with Pels who was committing mayhem on what looked to be half the thugs on StarStreet. Amazing thing to watch. We hauled him loose and took him home with us because Kumari was curious about him. No, she wasn’t about to go motherly over him. I talk about her as she, because she looks female, but she’s a neuter, got the sex drive of a rock and her maternal instincts could be engraved on a neutrino with a number ten nail. Most of her energy goes into curiosity.
We needed a com off, he needed a job. We took him on for one trip to see how he fit in. That was seven years ago.
Pels was digging around the thornbushes, pulling weeds, cleaning away sawdust and bits of paper and old leaves, loosening the earth about the roots. He keeps after me about the plants in the back yard, says I’m neglecting them, but those thornbushes could use a little neglect, they’re volunteers blown in by the hefty winds we get in the thaw storms. If I pampered them the way he wants they’d take over the yard, hey, they’d take over the world. He was about three-quarters finished with the thorns, baroom-brooming along, happy as he could get on a miserable one-g world.
Kumari was stretched out on a padded recliner, leafing through a book of poems composed in interlingue and interlarded with local idiom. She read snatches of them to me when she came across something she thought I ought to like. Mostly I ignored her, being too concentrated on gouge and wood to have much mind left for other things. All the same it was a pleasant noise. Shadith came about an hour after lunch…
2
Shadith brushed aside curls and chips of wood, swung onto the table; she set her hands on her thighs, waited until I finished the cut and ran my thumb along the line. “I need a sneaky lander,” she said. “Lend me Slider.”
“Hmm. See what you think of those harps. You like one, you can have it.”
She laughed at me. “Old Bear, put down your ax.” Hooking a foot around a table leg, she leaned back, ran her eyes over the three harps, chose one, not the best, I thought, but a start. With a treble grunt, she straightened, settled the harp against her shoulder and drew her fingers along the strings. “Interesting tuning. Well?”
“Why d’you want it?”
She wrinkled her nose at me, concentrated on her playing. Even I could tell the tone was dull; the song was dying on her. One dud. I think the wood was the problem there, no resonance to it. “Gray’s disappeared,” she said, “I’m off to see what happened.”
“I see. Want help?”
“This is a loser, Bear.” She did her lean again, switched harps, straightened. “Don’t think so.” It was my favorite she had this time, she smiled at the sound of it, played a snatch of some tune or other, moved on to another, then another. “My first chance to go off on my own,” she said after some minutes of noodling about. “In my own body. Got a tuning wrench around? I want to try something.”
“In the kit.” I lifted the tool kit over the harpframe I was working on and pushed it toward her. “Keep it if you want, easy enough for me to pick up another, you might be too busy where you’re going.” I watched her as she began retuning the harp. This was the first time I’d got a good look at that new body, couldn’t really count the web signal, the picture flats out here on Telffer, it’s a long way from anywhere. And the color bleeds, runs round the image like lectrify jelly. Lot of dumps and glitches around us. I found myself thinking, what’s a baby doing jumping into something hairy as that? Then I had to laugh; Shadow, little Shadith sitting inside that head, she was what? three, four thousand years older than me? Thing is, it’s hard to remember that looking at her. I was glad I’d had the nous to keep my mouth shut. I doubt having a body has changed her that much; she had a nasty turn of speech when she was annoyed.
She finished the tuning, began to play. Weird resonances. Tried to do things to my head. If I’d listened harder, I might’ve had visions, like some flaked out holyman. Hmm. Nice, once you got used to it. I went back to carving, the music made the cuts seem easier. Kumari closed her eyes, laid her book open facedown on her stomach. Pels stopped his humming but kept on with his digging. Remember his ears? They were up as h
igh as they went, spread out and quivering, he had them turned toward the table.
“I like the tone of this ’n,” she said.
“That’s the one I thought came out best, but try the other.”
“Why not.”
She traded harps, played with the new one a little, set it aside. “You’re right, the second one’s by far the best.”
“You needn’t sound so surprised.”
“Poor old Bear, that rubbed at you, eh? Put your fur down, I didn’t mean it that way. The lander?”
I looked at Kumari. She managed to shrug without moving. Pels sat on his haunches and gave me a slitted look. He didn’t say anything, but I got the point. “Take it, Shadow. Anything happens, the cost comes out of my share of profits.”
Kumari has a sound she makes when she’s amused. It isn’t quite laughter, it’s a combined rattle and hiss like the noises a kettle makes when the water’s about to boil. “Damn right,” she said.
Pels grinned, baring a pair of fangs that almost made him uncute. “Yes,” he said, “if anything’s sure in this unsure universe, that is.” He voices his sibilants and shifts or drops his plosives; it’s those teeth, but I’m not going to try to reproduce how he sounds. “Shadow, be sure you get the Sikkul Paems to run you through the basic finger patterns. The Paems and me, we haven’t finished working on her, so the coding’s a nightmare. Don’t get yourself in a spot where you have to switch about fast.”
“Slow and sneaky. Gotcha.”
“Grr.” He went back to fiddling in the dirt.
She slid off the table. “This harp have any kind of case?”
“In the workshed, on the table by the lathe.”
“Thanks, Old Bear.”
“Call it a coming-out present.”
She laughed and went trotting to the workshed. Kumari raised a brow. “A bit young to be running loose, isn’t she?”
Crew knows my history, makes things easier when I get down and dark, so they knew what I was talking about when I said, “She’s older than me.”
“Coming-out.” Kumari pinched her nose. “Shame, Swar.”
Before I could answer that, the incom tinged and the housekeep came on. “One Adelaar aici Arash to see Swardheld Quale, business, no appointment.” The plate showed a small woman with a determined face while housekeep waited for me to decide what I wanted to do.
“Eh, I know her.” Shadith came to stand beside me, swinging the harp case. “When I was coming from the port, I saw her walking along Sterado Street. Two men were going after her. Locals, I think.”
“On the street? Not pros then.”
“Well, one of them had a yagamouche, so they were serious about it. I stunned ’em, took her to that ottotel on Fejimao, her business card’s in my flit if you want an extra check on her. Um, I got fots of the men, they’re in the flit’s memory. You want, you can have them.” She frowned. “If this is business coming up, won’t you be needing Slider?”
“A deal’s a deal. The lander’s yours long as you need her. What we can’t finagle, we’ll fake. Mind her seeing you here?”
“’Course not. Why?”
“I’ve got to call Kinok about Slider, ve’ll want a look at you so ve knows who to let in. Best do that in the office. While we’re up there, you can give me the access code, I’ll have housekeep tap your flit. If there’s local talent after her,” I nodded at the plate, “I can use the fots to place them, might even recognize them myself, who knows. Better I have some idea what we’d be getting into before I close with her.”
I told the housekeep to let the woman in and take her to the living room, I wiped my hands off, brushed at the wood chips on my shirt and trousers and for maybe ten seconds thought about changing my clothes. Decided if she wanted a three piece suit she could buy one.
“Kumari, Pels, I’ll open the com, you keep an eye on what happens, give me a call if you see something I’m missing.”
“Aukma Harree’s blessing on her little head.” Kumari yawned. “I was getting bored doing nothing. Lean on her, Swar; someone that close to being offed should have a strong idea of how much her life is worth.” She made her happy noise. “A lean for a lien; the one on your share.”
“That’s not even worth a groan. You finished, Shadow? Come on, let’s find some air without verbal farts in it.”
I like towers so I built myself one; taller than the tendrij it is, faced with fieldstone and paneled with the finest wood on Telffer. Makes you want to reach out and caress it and I’m not saying I don’t if I’m alone so I don’t embarrass myself. My office is on the top floor of the tower, got a desk and all the gadgets I need to keep my peace unruffled, a pair of tupple chairs for my clients, a stunner or two in the walls in case one of ’em gets ambitious. A droptube under my chair, same reason. Handknotted rug from Gomirik, couple of paintings I like, a stone sculpture by a man on University, what’s his name… ah! Sarmaylen. Place looks nice if I say it myself. The tower’s tucked into the southeast corner of the main house, you get to it through the living room, there’s no outside entrance, at least not one I show an ordinary visitor. The guest rooms are freestanding, connected by a walkway; they’ve all got outside doors, for my privacy and theirs.
Harpcase bumping against her backside, strap over her shoulder, Shadith followed me in.
3
The woman was standing in the middle of the living room, prissy disapproval in the curve of her downturned mouth. Hmm. There was a bit of a mess in there, so what. Nothing to do with her. Her eyes flickered when she saw Shadith, but the expression on her face didn’t change. Looked like she was plated with stainless steel, a lot of anger underneath, though; no passion, no warmth, only anger and a hard control as if she’d explode if she let go her grip a single instant.
“Come,” I said, and palmed the tube open. “My office is the tower’s top floor.”
She nodded, a taut economical jerk of her head, then followed Shadow and me into the lift tube.
III
1. Approaching zero.
Quale’s Nest/Telffer.
The flickit was battered, rusty, with an intermittent eructation in its field generator that jolted a grunt out of Adelaar every time because it wasn’t regular enough to let her get set for the drop. The seat she sat on was dusty, streaked with ancient grease and sweat, polished to a high gloss by years and years of antsy behinds. When the driver pulled open the door for her and she smelled the interior for the first time, her stomach lurched and she couldn’t help flinching from the filth, but she climbed in without comment. She couldn’t afford to antagonize the driver/owner; he was the only one willing to take her out of Prin Daruze, the only one. If he dumped her, she’d have to do her negotiating over the com circuit and that would be like broadcasting her woes to the world. Specifically, to Bolodo Neyuregg Ltd. Besides, she had to see Quale, to know him. So much depended on him.
The driver was a dour and silent man. Pressed to go faster, he slowed to a crawl; she recognized defeat and kept her fuming internal. The trip wasn’t all that long, only about an hour, but his stubborn silence meant there was nothing to distract her from her fretting.
The past three plus years had been a heavy drain on her resources; she’d taken her best researcher off markets and tech breaks, set him hunting out mercenaries, she’d put in escrow a sum for hiring the most reliable of them once she located her daughter, she’d left Adelaris Ltd. in Halash’s hands. He was a good manager, he’d keep things going, but he wasn’t up to finding new markets or people, the company would be treading in place. She’d drawn her travel and research expenses from Adelaris’ current account; the search had taken far longer and was more costly than she’d expected, the account was dangerously low now, she really couldn’t pull more out without destroying her business, bankrupting herself and her partners; they’d been patient with her. They more or less had to be, she was Adelaris. Without her patents and processes, without her energies, Adelaris Security Systems wouldn’t exist, but there was a l
imit to how much she could ask of them. If Quale didn’t work out, she’d have to tap into the escrow fund and that might start a hemorrhage that would kill all chance of getting Aslan back. The driver’s fee was one more stone on the pile, which didn’t make it easier for her to tolerate his sour misogyny.
The flickit flew west and a little south, labored along a steep-walled river gorge which cut deep into mountains that rose and subsided like waves of stone, each wave higher than the last, narrow grassy valleys dividing them, mountains thick with trees and brush, with fortress houses scattered widely along the slopes. It labored through a pass and came out into a broad valley, turned several degrees farther south and followed the river to a house on a mountainside, a rambling structure with scattered suites like nodes on an angular vine, a tower at a corner of the largest node.
The Telff circled wide round the house, set down at a detached landing pad at least two hundred meters off, clanked the door open for her and settled himself to sleep while he waited for her to finish her business or send him away. Whether she went back with him or not, he’d gotten a roundtrip fee from her. When she was out, he cracked an eye. “Stay on the path,” he said. “You won’t like what happens, you go off it.”