by Janet Morris
The ache in my throat came first to me, and with it I bought delay. “Might I have water?” I petitioned him. He brought it from the partition dispenser. Sipping, I regarded him from under my hair.
“I’ve let you sample my skills,” he said when I put the drink by. “Now I’d try yours.” I could hear it in him, the fascination for my calling, for what I was, rather than who. I sighed, and rose, brushing by him, letting my trailing hand make the first touch. Only did I greet it, soft as a wirragaet’s wing, as I put sufficient distance between us. Revealing the body before a man did I then review, in its most extended version, that I might in that time fan the fire low within me. M’tras, with instinctive etiquette, stood silent participant with me; he also rising, fists upon hips thrown aggressively forward. Deep below my navel, my heat hissed and grew. I turned full around, slowly.
He lifted me clear off the ground in mid-turn, and it was his face then that warned me. But truly, it was late. Customs differ. Morality is only a selective overlay. I saw the outline of his fist against my belly. I clamped my teeth upon my wrist, tasting my own blood. No M’ksakkan was M’tras.
“You’re small in the hips,” he said coldly, in the way of such a man after couching. I noted the beaded sweat upon his upper lip, the deep intake of his breath.
“Still, think you?” I said in Silistran. I lay upon my back, my hips turned, assessing my damages. He laughed, with clicks.
“Have you been long without?” I asked, still in my language.
“Long enough,” he grunted, rolling onto his side. He leaned upon a crooked arm. His pulse beat hard in the veins that rode, webber-like, near the surface of his skin. His Silistran was hesitant, unaccented. “Something new, perhaps?” he postulated, over what he had done.
“My body knew it not,” I admitted, not adding that I had seen Sereth do such a thing, to another man, upon a time.
He ran his free hand over my hip, under the dharen’s chald. His fingers counted the gol-drops. If he had wanted to shock me, to make me wary, respectful, he had succeeded. “How did you find it?” He smiled over the Silistran phrase.
“I would not add it to my practice, given the choice. But I am willing to admit I will never forget it.” Lest he again strive to make himself singular in my sight, I spoke, praised his skill. Tentatively I moved my body, moaned, lay still.
“Please do not give me up to those others, M’tras.” I reached out my hand, let my fingers trail his chest. I thought of the woman, and shivered. My kidneys ached. Slowly I drew up my knees. He seemed to be considering me. My skin cooled as his eyes ran along it. He clicked twice, stretched back for his belt, still wedged at the slab’s head beneath rumpled plush. My fists clenched, I studied him, searching a clue to his temper in his alien ways.
He spread the belt on the velvet. Whistling softly, he slid a metal cover, exposing a narrow visual display, quiescent. I twisted toward it, so close my nose caught the machine breath’s tang. Numbers flashed replies to his deft finger-questionings. Grunting his satisfaction, he stopped it, covered the twelve-digit face.
“M’tras,” I whispered, daring a light touch upon his hirsute forearm, “please. I am long removed from wellwork. Such demands as yours tax me to my limit.” Those black-ringed eyes met mine, calculating. A tiny tic flashed over his left lid.
“If it means something to you,” he said, flat voiced, “I could arrange it. But we’ll trade favor for favor. Deal?” Once more, it was M’ksakkan he spoke.
“Your will ...” I acquiesced, releasing the breath I had held. Even the touch had been chancy, upon a man who fancied no aggression from a female. I waited for him to make his move. Stochastic improviser, he had named himself, and aural symbolist. What those words meant, I could only conjecture. He rolled onto his stomach. One of his hands remained upon his belt. His eyes did not leave me. I could get no sense of what lurked behind them. What was he? Surely more than he seemed, to have acquired me. He had gotten help, he had told Maref. I let my gaze catch his, across the belt.
“Why did you kill Liuma?” I asked him softly.
“The other woman? She was a witness. She shouldn’t have been there.”
“It did no good. Many might have witnessed what occurred, from the lakeside.”
“I’m supposed to ask you the questions,” he growled, propping himself up on an elbow. “How do you think he figured it out so fast?”
“Khys? Most probably, someone saw you. He might have had it from my mind. Often he has monitored me. Or he might have looked in upon the moment, having easily accessible perameters like the breaking of the window and Liuma’a death. Or he might simply have gotten his information from the sort. I doubt that there was more than one path leading here. Or—”
“Stop! That’s all garbage,” he snapped, scowling. He jabbed his belt alight. “Let’s say nobody saw us. I was assured that no one would. I’m going to give myself that much credit. It didn’t have to be us. Anyone with that much power has enemies.” Pulling at his lip, he fell silent. Cautiously I gathered my legs under me. My thighs trembled with tetanus. Who, I wondered, had assured him? Who could give such assurance?
“That leaves,” he said dourly, “him eavesdropping upon the whole escapade by means of your mind. I’m not willing to believe that. Or you think he might have reconstructed what happened. I can believe that, more easily, but not the way you put it. That last—that he would have known it was us because it was us—I can’t find any way to state that in terms I can work with.” He squinted at me, though the light had not brightened. Reaching out, he traced the band of restraint at my neck. “If the first is true, what assurance have I that he isn’t ‘monitoring’ us now?”
“None,” I said. “He might be.”
He grinned. I met his humor solemn-eyed. A shiver ran perceptibly over his flesh. “I’m going to start over. Do you know anything about Silistran politics?”
“You asked me that before,” I reminded him. His flat palm stopped in mid-strike, the wind of it buffeting my cheek. “No.” I cowered, startled. “Not much, anyway.”
“That’s better,” he said. “Now tell me how a bunch of anachronistic savages managed to destroy two brand-new, unmentionably expensive M-class Aggressives. I know you were involved.” His scowl, brought ominously close, was terrifying.
“At the battle of Amarsa, you mean? It was only a peripheral effect. The energy I was using to fight Raet as Uritheria threw a whole section of Silistra out of sequential time—” And he did slap me resoundingly. I put my hand to my stinging cheek.
“Try again,” he spat, thrusting his face close once more. The veins at his temple pulsed his outrage. “What caused the destruction of those ships?”
“Please, I have told you the truth,” I whimpered. “Would you make me lie?”
A long time he questioned me, over and over again the same words. And I answered him as best I could, trying to keep my answers consistent. But he wanted other knowledge than the truths I had for him. Unaccepting of my replies, he sought for those he had preconceived. My throat was dry and sore and my mind spinning when he finally desisted, truimphant at having extracted from me an admission that the old weapons of prehistoric Silistran wars still existed.
“Somewhere”—I had stumbled over my tongue my eagerness to please him—“they are, in the hides. But they are old, so old, and long untended. It is not our custom to cherish such things. Thousands of years they have lain there. I would doubt that any are still functional.” Huddled opposite him, I fell silent. I could retreat no farther, my back already pressed against the wall that spawned the slab. I thought of Chayin’s threat to exhume those weapons, when the M’ksakkans tried to treat with the Parset Lands.
“That,” he said, crouched menacingly above me, “makes more sense.” His bearing blared his triumph, that he had found truth that suited his preconception. “That’s the whole key to it, isn’t it! Old weapons, from a more sophisticated culture.” He grinned widely. “I’d be willing to bet that some of
them are still functional,” he mimicked nastily. “Functional enough to blow a hole in the B.F. budget, that’s sure.”
I lowered my gaze to the brown velvet of the slab. My fingers made light strips running against the nap. Let him, by his own will, be misinformed. When Khys blasted his M’ksakkan moon from time and space, M’tras would learn,
“Whatever the source,” I offered, hesitant, “would it not serve you to avoid a confrontation with weapons against which you have no defense? Return me to the dharen. I have some little influence.” I lied then, but he could not know it. “I will see to it that there are no reprisals.”
“No chance,” he grunted. “As close as I can, I’m going to stick to my first conception. I’m going to hold you. He’ll deal. If he could have just snatched you, he would have done so by now. If he were sure, he would’ve arrested Dellin.” he added, crossing his legs under him. He watched me attentively, waiting. I only stared.
“What are you thinking?” he demanded.
“That you had better ask these questions of your friend the belt. Its answers suit you better than mine. But you are a fool to so shortchange the dharen. He will, when it suits him, do exactly as he wishes with all of us.” I wondered why I bothered, rubbing my bruised cheek. Shifting off one aching thigh, I was reminded of the coarseness with which he had set about demoralizing me. “I was”—I raised my eyes to him, chin high—“once, very powerful. Suspend for a moment your disbelief. Grant me my blood right. It was I, not Khys, whose power destroyed your ships, offhandly, while about a much greater undertaking. With gods did I contend. My father is greatest among the Shapers, those who created this apparent time and space in which we live. And I fell to Khys. Totally and completely did he denude me of my strengths, until I could be taken by even the likes of you. That fact alone should warn you.” I broke off, for he no longer listened. His belt, upon his lap, spoke in its strange language. He sat very still, attentive. After a time he straightened up, pulled spread fingers through his black hair. His discontent lay upon him like a sneer.
“Get dressed,” he snapped, rising to take his own orders.
Obediently I wrapped my silk short-length about me. It seemed skimpy, insufficient covering for this place. It was quickly done, and I stood, uncertain, awaiting him as he layer by layer donned his fitted gear. When all that could be seen of his flesh was above the neck and below the wrist, I ventured to ask it.
“Is it a point of economics that concerns you? Is it recompense for what you lost at our hands that brought you to this foolhardy action?”
“Partly,” he grunted, fastening his belt over his hips.
“Then you and I could resolve between us all differences, peacefully,” I blurted, excited with the simplicity of the idea.
“How?” He disbelieved, fists resting on his black-clothed hips. A surreptitious finger set his belt whirling. It hummed softly, content to be in service to its master.
“I will leave with you my chald. One could buy a yra of such ships with its worth.” I grinned at him, expecting approbation.
He came and ran his hands over it, nestled against the white and silver silk at my waist. “I didn’t think it was real,” he muttered. Then he clicked, raising his eyes to mine. “A man could, with that much gol, buy an A-systems computer, even.” His fingers twisted in the strands, relaxed. But his body was stiff, his breath moving shallowly in his chest. I knew he considered it. “I can’t do that,” he said, pushing me away. “Lives were spent. Even that much wealth can’t replace them.”
“And spending more lives will? A moon full of lives, perhaps? If I were you, I would warn those who dwell upon that sphere that they may flee the dharen’s wrath.” I turned my back to him, tense, waiting for a blow that did not fall.
“I’ve done that,” he said, still subdued, as I made my way to the slab upon limbs that shook despite my best efforts. There I crawled to the corner, faced him from its comforting security. He only watched me, a bemused expression upon him. I knew that he would click his tongue a second before I heard the sharp tone.
“What do you want, then, from Khys?” I asked, the distance between us emboldening me.
“I want,” he said in a flat, cold voice, “the man who killed Mossenen. I want recomprense in serum for every man lost along with those ships; I want their weight in drugs. The only replacement fitting for their lives is the gift of life.” I hardly heard the last. Sereth’s life, he would demand. Khys would never cede it. And if it came to a trade, I would give mine gladly rather than see such an occurrence.
“Khys will never agree,” I hissed, and the vehemence of my tone drove his dark brows down over his eyes. With measured steps he approached me.
“He will. Or you’ll bear the whole weight of our displeasure. Mossenen was the most-loved adjuster ever to rule M’ksakka. We can’t have your killers picking us off at their leisure. It’s principle. We let him get away with this, we might as well hand him the Bipedal Federate Group.”
“If you—” Chiming interrupted me. I bit my lip, swallowing what I would have said. It occurred to me, as he slapped the partition to life, that he might not know whom he sought, who had killed the M’ksakkan official. And I had almost enlightened him.
Revealed upon the screen was Maref, an infinitesimal muscle jumping in his miniature jaw. “Dellin’s on his way down there. There was no stopping him.” His tone was apologetic, his palms raised to the screen.
“That’s nice,” said M’tras dryly. “What are you doing up there, playing with each other? Get three men down here. I want them waiting outside the door!” He slapped the screen away, growling deep in his throat.
As he crossed to his strange instrument and sank with it in his lap into the green chair, I could not help but remember a thing Khys had said, when first we stood before him, Chayin, Sereth, and I, and he derided us. Of Sereth he had spoken his disquiet, that such a seemingly talentless one had come to stand before him, and in the company of such “blood” as was possessed by the cahndor of Nemar and me. Later, Khys had said that when a man comes forcibly into your circle by means of outstanding accomplishment, one cannot gainsay his right to be there, however much his very presence might alter some cherished preconception. Thus, I reasoned, it must be with this alien, M’tras. His music rolled and thundered, the anger in it prodding my adrenals. Cold it was, a summoning from the abyss. Bass clef only, of that score that holds the worlds aligned, did M’tras call forth from his stringed machine. His head was down. His lips upon occasion moved, mouthing the sounds his fingers made. His work-set face glittered like Khys’s seal upon by breast.
He palmed his strings to jarring quiet as the door panel blinked. The partition upheld the palm-lock, chiming. I found myself pressed back into the corner, thinking of what the three of us had done to Dellin that time we sought Celendra. I pulled the velvet up around me, dragging it loose from the slab foot.
M’tras was looking at me. The door chimed again. He turned away and touched his waist. The door slid aside. Dellin, leaning there in northern leathers and cloak, short-sworded, chalded, straightened up slowly. His eyes were bleak. He had still, I noted as he crossed the keep, ignoring M’tras, the limp I had seen upon him in Khys’s audience chamber. He had, I thought, cringing back, velvet cover crushed in my fists, lost the weight he had carried excessive in ’695. M’tras merely turned his chair upon its pedestal, that he might observe. He ran a thumb over his lower lip. Then I could not see him; Dellin’s bulk obscured all else.
“Estri!” His knees were upon the slab, those hand reaching out toward me. “Are you hurt? By the gods of my mother, I assure you, I had no hand in this,” He grabbed me up in his arms, held me. Shocked, I was limp against his sweet-smelling circlet armor. He lifted me from the slab, placing my feet upon the floor.
At arm’s length he held me. In Silistran he had spoken. I answered him the same.
“Presti, m’it tennit, Liaison,” I replied. “I am well enough.” His fingers dug my shoulders. “Among
these artifacts of your culture, Khaf-Re, think you the both of us seem out of place?” His fingers loosened, dropped away to his chald. I had marked it augmented. Besides the Slayer’s chain, he bore that of threxman and one gold strand, that of birthing fulfilled. I caught his troubled glance, made a sign that I knew he knew. M’tras watched, perplexed, as Dellin pulled me against him.
“Estri, there is no use in it,” he whispered, gainsaying the Slayer’s sign I had given. “Do not ask me to go against my own people. I have seen the dharen. You need no more help. Let me salvage what I may,” he continued, in thick dialectic Arletian. “I had thought you deprived of self. I saw you once, and you knew me not. I had sniffed such seemings upon the breeze, but the Weathers called it Khys’s hand.” I pushed back, grinning, to meet his grim smile. Let M’tras decipher that with his tape-learned Silistran.
“Aforetime,” I agreed solemnly, “such was the case. Yet I recall the moment, and even that I knew you not. We ride the crux wind again, you and I.”
“And you with the dharen’s seal upon your skin,” slurred Dellin.
“That’s enough,” snapped M’tras. “Dellin, sit here. Now! You”—he pointed at me—“over here on the floor where I can watch you.” The M’ksakkan mechanic’s eyes roved Dellin as the larger man obeyed him. “Only one out of fifty go native,” he said, sardonic. I knelt before him, realizing, only after the fact, that I sat as Khys had trained me.
Dellin, in his trail gear, shifted uncomfortably. “I had to get to Port Astrin,” he said in M’ksakkan. “I had to get through the streets, into the port.”
“You could have stayed,” said M’tras, voice edged like honed stra.
Dellin cursed in M’ksakkan. M’tras leaned back in his sky-green chair. “It’s me he’d abuse, not you,” M’tras said, eyes narrowed, “She seemed to think,” he remarked to Dellin, “you’d show me a little Silistran woman-beating if I let you in here. I’m disappointed.” Together they looked little alike. Only their coloring was similar.