by Sharon Lee
“Sorry, Pilot. It wasn’t my intention to bring trouble to the ship.”
“Fortunately for us all, you did not bring trouble to the ship, though it did come rather close.”
“Trouble,” he repeated, and settled his shoulders against the ’doc. “This woman belongs to Clan Korval.”
“Yes,” the pilot agreed. “But on this ship, we do not count Korval as trouble. Will she live?”
“I think so. She’s big, and tough. The poison’s slow-moving.” He sighed, and closed his eyes.
“They want you to be cooperative, see? So they hold out that they’ll give the antidote, and they do a countdown of how many hours the poisoned has left until the antidote won’t do ’em any good.”
“These do not sound like very pleasant people,” the pilot observed.
Tolly laughed. “No, they’re not.”
“So. Tell me, please, how you would prefer to be called?”
He sighed, thinking of the names that had been his, and then not, including the name on the license, which hadn’t been with him the longest, by any measure, though he had more than a passing fondness for it.
“Tolly,” he said to his pilot’s dark, reflective face. “Matches the license, close enough, and I’m used to it.”
“Very well, then Tolly. I am Tocohl. One more question, before I ask you again to perform self-care: what are these?”
They floated in the air between them, two ceramic pipes, simple, clean-looking things. Unthreatening. Sort of like the pilot, here.
Tolly looked at them, feeling his heart speed up, and thought, for less than a millisecond, about lying. It was bad form to lie to your pilot, unless it was for her own good. And, of all the sentiences in all the universes, this one was less likely than most to lust after the power that lay in those pipes.
Not only that, she’d know he was lying, and toss him out on the port where he was responsible for the presence of two dead bodies, and a moderate amount of mayhem.
So he said, quiet and calm, and not trying to hide anything. “Control devices.”
“What do they control?”
“Me . . . well. More or less, they do. I’ve been working on upgrading and amending internal systems. The pipes—they’re not as powerful as they were when I was in school, but they’re still a threat and a menace.”
“Are there any more of these that might menace you?”
“I imagine so, Pilot, but I don’t how many. I’ve always assumed as a general rule of thumb that there’s two more for every one I capture.”
He looked bleakly at the pipes floating before him, wondering idly if it was a personal gravity field his pilot had, or just a fetching way with magnetics.
“So far, that ratio’s held firm.”
“I see. Please take these and see them destroyed. I assume that you know how best to go about it. I will ask you please to make yourself both seemly and ready to sit your station. Your quarters are aft. If you require rest, please see to it. If you require food or drink, please draw and consume those things in the appropriate quantities before you come to the board. We lift in three local hours. I expect you at your station in two local hours.”
“Yes, Pilot.” He hesitated, then said, “Clan Korval will want to know where Haz is.”
“I will take care of informing the appropriate persons. Must I order you to tend to your needs?”
“No, Pilot.”
He got to his feet, took the pipes gently into his hand, bowed to the pilot’s honor and left the infirmary.
“Captain, a warrior awaits us on the southern patio,” Nelirikk’s voice came over the car’s intercom.
In the seldom-occupied back passenger compartment, Val Con and Miri exchanged a look: hers studiously bland, his accompanied by a lifted brow.
“Well, let us see,” she said. “If the warrior awaits, one makes the assumption that the warrior is not dead.”
“And if the warrior is not dead,” he added, “it argues that Jeeves knows and approves of both the warrior and the state of waiting.”
“I agree.”
“Therefore, the warrior is . . .”
She frowned. “Someone also known to Mr. pel’Kana, I think, and to Nelirikk, but who is neither family, nor among us sufficiently long to have acquired a troop name.”
The car stopped at that point, and the doors opened.
Val Con exited on his side, Miri on hers, both turning toward the patio as they did.
“Good afternoon, Rys,” said Miri, and Val Con, “Brother, are we so rag-mannered that we could not give you a place in the House?”
“I had asked to sit out, if the House permitted,” Rys said, coming easily to his feet. His hands were empty and held slightly away from his body. The right one glowed like gold in the summer sunlight.
He had put his coat aside and stood only in a light jacket over a high-necked red sweater and tough black canvas pants. The breeze had had its way with his curls, and his eyes were bright.
He looked, Miri thought, like Val Con’s kid brother, in truth.
“At least we had the good grace to give you refreshment,” Val Con said as they arrived at the patio. Nelirikk continued past them, through the door and into the house.
“Are those grapes?” Val Con asked.
“Indeed they are,” Rys said, briskly. “And I wish you to know that the task you set me has been accomplished. Here—taste these.”
He swept the basket from the table, and nearly shoved it at Val Con, who broke off two branches, handing one to Miri.
In Miri’s experience, grapes were either pale green, dark red, or purple. These grapes were a sort of dusty gold. She put one in her mouth.
She had expected the fruit to be sweet—but it was much more complex than simply sweet. In fact, she couldn’t be certain that it was precisely sweet, so she had another one, trying to quantify what, exactly, she was tasting.
“Are you responsible for these?” Val Con asked Rys, his voice sounding as astonished as she felt.
Rys laughed.
“Was there time to grow and harvest them, even had I the vines in hand? No. These, so Mrs. ana’Tak tells me, arrive from Mr. Shaper, your neighbor, who brought them this morning with the news that he has far too many for his own use, and if she finds them to her liking, he can supply her with more. He will, he told her, hold out some few for himself, which are destined to become raisins.”
“Raisins,” Val Con repeated, putting another grape into his mouth.
“They will make excellent raisins,” Miri said.
Rys nodded at her with a half-smile.
“Indeed, but they will also produce a very drinkable wine. My brother had given me the task of producing a Surebleak vintage.”
“A Surebleak grape is not a Surebleak vintage,” Val Con pointed out.
“True, but I claim my task complete. There are winemakers a-plenty in the city; you do not need me for that.”
“And what will you do,” Miri asked, “if you will not be Korval’s winemaker?”
The look he gave her this time had no smile in it at all.
“I will assume command of those who have chosen wisely and lead them to confound our enemy.”
It was getting to be closing time at Bob’s Grocery, and not any too soon, either.
Bob moved around the store, turning down the lights, covering over the vegetables with the freshkeep blankets he’d just got from the new supply store. Spendy little things, but din’t they just do the trick? The bins kept things fresh enough, but the greens and marrows and, well, the soft foods, they started in to lookin’ a little sad an’ wilted along about the sixth day out.
Them new blankets, though—cover ’em over at night, and next mornin’ it was like you had brand new vegetables in the bin, almost. Lasted another three days, easy, which meant he had to buy less, sure, but it meant less waste, too. Less waste meant he could afford to lower the prices a little; make it easier for everybody on the street. Only a little easier, but each littl
e thing that got easier added to the growing pile of things that were a little easier, a little less expensive, a little fresher . . .
Yeah. Things added up, and the things that’d been adding up since the New Bosses and the Council got things headed in a whole ’nother direction . . .
Hey, his kid was going to school, and guess what? His kid—his Matty—won a prize for spelling! Bob, he could read—had to, in his bidness, and his ma’d made sure he could add a column of figures up and down in his head and get the same answer every time. But, spelling, now . . . ’s’long’s he could sound it out, that was good enough.
He covered up the last of the softs, and turned off the lights in the back section.
Speakin’ of figures, he’d best lock the door, and tally up the day’s take. Go on home and have dinner with his kid. Hear what happened in school today. That was always a—
The bell over the front door rang, and Bob sighed.
Damn late customer. Well, he’d hustle ’em up a little; help ’em find what they wanted real quick and—
“Bob here?” A man’s voice, way too loud for the circumstances, or the store. Wasn’t that big a store, you hadda holler to be heard.
“Right here,” he said, stepping out of the end of the row.
His customer turned, and Bob’s stomach went right down to his feet.
The guy grinned. In his two hands was the new sign, the one Bob’d just put up in the front window that morning, that said NO INSURANCE SALES ALLOWED. Matty’d brought it home—Boss Kalhoon’d gone to the school and talked to all the kids about how there wasn’t going to be any more insurance sales, nor any makin’ of zamples, just like there wasn’t going to be any retirement parties and the new Boss comin’ around demanding a present or . . .
The sign, though, it was ripped right in half, and once the guy saw he had Bob’s attention, he dropped both halves on the floor and scuffed ’em with his boot.
“Evenin’, Bob,” he said, and he pulled a little book outta his pocket.
Snow and sleet, din’t he remember them damn little books! Just lookin’ at this one had him shaking with mingled mad and scared.
“So, Bob, your insurance payment’s due,” the guy said, flipping open the little book and licking the end of his pencil. He made a show of scanning the pages, turning them over real slow, until Bob was ready to scream at him—’cept you din’t yell at the insurance man. You din’t do one thing that might add a percentage to your payment due.
Finally, the guy found the page he wanted. He nodded to it, like it was an old friend, and looked to Bob with a nasty smile on his face.
“Syndicate’s gonna need four hunnert cash, and this list here made up and waitin’, all nice in a box, when I come back to collect.”
He held a piece of paper out, and Bob took it, hating the way his fingers shook.
It was a long list, and it would wipe him outta items like coffee an’ sugar an’ cheese—expensive items, all going to the Boss for free, on top of the cash, which was way more—three times more!—than his last insurance payment, back when Moran was Boss, before Conrad retired him and started in piling up those little good changes one by one. He’d barely been able to pay that, even with stinting himself, and givin’ Matty slim pickin’s, and that wasn’t no good for a growing kid.
“I’ll be taking half of the cash on deposit,” the insurance man said, “right now. The rest of the cash, and the list—you have that ready for me to pick up day after tomorra.”
Two hundred cash, right now.
“Sure,” Bob said, and headed for the counter, where the cash drawer was, hearing the insurance man walking behind him.
He opened the drawer, hunching over it, so the man couldn’t get his fingers in and help himself to ten or fifty “for his trouble,” and started counting.
He started counting, his fingers going slow, and his eyes lit on the card Matty’d brought him from school, the one with all the contact numbers on it. Right above them, it said, in big letters: Insurance Sales Are Against The Law.
The Law.
The Law—that was Conrad and the New Bosses, and Matty winning the spelling bee at school. The Law said he din’t have to pay this guy, din’t have to feel this way—it said Matty din’t never have to feel this way, when he come to take over the store.
Bob took a deep breath, and closed the lid on the cash box.
He reached under the counter, his hand closing ’round the piece o’heavy pipe he kept there, mostly for scarin’ away punks. He din’t never hit anybody with it.
But, for this guy—for this Syndicate trying to take Matty’s bright new future away from him?
He’d make an exception.
A whole minute had passed and Val Con hadn’t said anything yet.
Miri figured that for a record. Rys really oughta take hold of his advantage and press his case, but Rys didn’t have much experience of Val Con, adopted brother or not.
So, it looked like it was up to her.
“That sounds to be an excellent plan, Rys,” she said. “You will, of course, show the details, after dinner. For this moment, however . . .”
She turned to look at Val Con.
“Mr. Shaper is behind in contacting you regarding Shan’s deed. Why not combine two errands into one? You may ask after the paper, and Rys may find the source of these delightful grapes. I, in the meanwhile, will visit Talizea.”
Val Con took a breath, and inclined his head.
“That is an excellent scheme. Brother? A small walk before Prime, and possibly a discussion with our very interesting neighbor, if he is receiving visitors today?”
“That sounds pleasant,” said Rys, and so it was decided.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Corner of Dudley Avenue and Farley Lane
In the late afternoon, there came a knock at the door.
Kamele raised her head from the folder of letters she had been studying, listening to Dilly’s footsteps as she approached the door and opened it.
There came the sound of voices: a woman’s, bold and carrying the distinctive rhythm of an accent not elsewhere found on Surebleak, even though her words were muffled.
Kamele smiled, and rose from her chair, pausing only to mark her place in the file before hurrying out of her office and down the stairs.
It had become a habit, after their first, formal meeting at Joan’s Bakery—many weeks ago, now—that Silain, luthia, or grandmother, of the Bedel who lived in and yet apart from the rest of the port city, would call on them now and then. They would sit around the table and talk for an hour over tea, and all arise refreshed and reinvigorated.
Kamele looked forward to these visits, for Silain was a woman of great learning and insight. She thought that Kareen also put a value upon the grandmother’s visits.
Kareen, so Kamele had observed, was lonely. She had abandoned a wide circle of acquaintance, scholarship, and volunteer work on the old world, and while their mutual project was . . . encompassing; it did not replace old friends or accustomed duty.
Kamele rounded the wide bottom stair, and walked down the hall toward the dining room at the back of the house.
The table was covered with a deep green cloth, on which three groupings of creamy china cups and plates had been set out, with various spoons and tongs and knives. In the center of the table, a vase painted in abstract swirls of cream and green held a cluster of cream and yellow flowers.
Kareen was already welcoming their guest.
“It is good of you to come, Silain. Indeed, I wish it were in my power to convey how much I look forward to our teas.”
“It is good for sisters to talk,” Silain said, as Kamele slipped into the room. “And here—here is my other sister! We are complete.”
“Let us sit,” Kareen said. “The tea will come soon, and I believe that there are the filled cakes you favor, Silain.”
“That is well. I brought a few fruits of limin, and some mint—a gift to your kitchen, Sister. Dilly took them in hand.”
“My house is made richer by a sister’s gift,” Kareen said. “But, Silain, you must sit, and be comfortable.”
So urged, Silain took her usual seat, with the hall doorway at her left hand. Kareen’s chair was at what she called the head of the table, which coincidentally faced the doorway. Kamele sat across from Silain, with Kareen on her left.
“Does your work progress well, Sisters?”
“As well as may be,” Kareen said, with a cool smile at Kamele. “There was a find earlier in the week, which may be significant, as it supports anecdotal evidence of which we had previously taken note.”
Silain in her turn looked to Kamele.
“What did you find, if it can be shared, among sisters?”
“In fact, it seems peculiarly apt to share it among sisters,” Kamele said, leaning forward and clasping her hands together on the tabletop.
“We found a . . . compilation of letters written by grandmothers in various turfs, detailing the history, and the responsibilities, of each. It appears to have been written and collected before the old system broke down utterly, and the Bosses decided to stop cooperating with each other. It doesn’t describe a fully functioning system, but it does seem to show us that the society was closely modeled on the Gilmour Agency’s corporate structure. Each department, or section, had a number of colonists attached to it.
“Later, the system”—she moved her hands, as if she was trying to find the words in the air before her—“the system imploded, each section collapsing into itself. The toolbooths became the boundary by which each turf defined itself, and the Boss became the absolute power over the colonists—the streeters.”
“This is exciting information, I see,” Silain said. “But does the past teach you anything useful about the future?”
“All systems build on the past,” Kamele said, “even those which are built on a deliberate denial of the past.”
There was a small sound in the hallway, and she paused while Esil Lang and Amiz brought in the tea tray.
“Thank you,” said Kareen, when the first cups had been poured and the plates of cakes and bread set on the table. “Leave the pot, please. We will serve ourselves.”