Melissa Scott - Shadow Man

Not for the first time since he’d come to Hara, he found himself wondering why he’d accepted this assignment. He could have stayed on Joshua, stayed with Mali Kaysa—sane, sensible, man-straight Kaysa, complicated in ways he understood. He closed his eyes, shutting out the white sky, the dark horizon, remembering instead the lights of Helensport and the cool nights when they’d walked home together from one of the clubs or a show or even just from working late. He could almost feel her hand cool in his, hear her laughter and the cheerful voice of the demi couple, a woman and a fem, who shared the narrow garden between their rented houses. They had thrown good parties, that pair, and he remembered an image from one with special clarity: Kaysa with her mahogany hair straight as rain, for once freed from its braid to flow almost to her waist, standing in the blued light of the door lantern. She had been watching a man and a woman, friends of hers from the translators’ office where she worked, going through the first almost ritual questions, each trying to signal sexual interest without going too far, just in case the other wasn’t interested.

“You could’ve told him she was man-straight,” Tatian had said, and put his arm around her waist.

“I’m not a matchmaker,” Kaysa had answered, and leaned companionably against him. “Besides, this is more fun.”

That memory had an ironic feeling to it now, on Hara, where there weren’t any rules, or at least not ones that he could accept as normal, or even reasonable. That party had been one of the last ordinary nights before he’d been offered the Haran assignment—which paid too well, offered too much chance of promotion, to refuse—and he clung to the memory. The people had been sane, reasonable, ordinary, had known who and what they were: it was something to hold to on Hara.

He found a seat in the corner of the poorly cooled car away from the fading sunlight and settled in for the ride back to Bonemarche, listening with half an ear to the chatter of the half-dozen or so indigenes who shared the car. Outside the window, the thick grasses rose and fell in the rising breeze, the half-open seedheads of the flaxen tossing like foam. The sky over Bonemarche was dark with clouds, and he saw the first bolts of lightning streak from cloud to sea. The monorail track was the highest thing on the upper plain, always vulnerable, and he was relieved when the train negotiated the curves of the descent without incident and passed between the first buildings, following the Portroad into the city. By the time the train pulled into the station at Harborlook, the first drops of rain were falling, leaving damp patches ten centimeters wide in the dust of the platform.

He shared a ride back to the Estrange with a pair of technicians from WestSiCo, who spent most of the ride mumbling arcane shipping formulae. They reached Drapdevel Court just as the rain was ending. The court was mostly dry, for once, just a few puddles starting to steam as the clouds broke, and he pushed open the office door without bothering to take off his shoes. To his surprise, Derebought was sitting at the lobby console, the privacyscreen unfolded along the desktop edge.

“I’m glad you’re back, Tatian, these—people—have been waiting to see you.”

Tatian looked sideways into the little waiting area, wondering what else would go wrong today, and sighed deeply, recognizing the IDCA agents sitting on the padded bench. “What do you want?”

Stevins Jhirad grinned, and unfolded þimself from the bench. Þe was tall for a mem—wasn’t much like the stereotype of a mem at all, Tatian thought, not for the first time. Þe was too tall, too thin, most of all too quick of tongue and hand, more like a herm than a mem.

“To talk to you, what else?” þe said, still smiling.

“Talk away,” Tatian answered. NAPD’s dealings with the Interstellar Disease Control Agency were infrequent, but had rarely been profitable or pleasant.

“In private, if you don’t mind, Tatian.” That was Kassa Valmy, rising easily to stand by her partner. She smiled then, as though to rob the words of any threat, but Tatian didn’t feel particularly reassured.

“Is there a problem?” he asked, and waved them ahead of him into his office. If there was a problem, it wouldn’t come from business, he added silently, was more likely to be something personal—either his encounter with the mosstaas this morning, though that seemed unlikely, or Reiss. Probably Reiss, he thought, and closed the door carefully behind him, gesturing for the others to take a seat.

Jhirad settled þimself comfortably in the nicer of the client’s chairs, cocking one long leg across the other, but Valmy shook her head. “I’ll stand, thanks. I’ve been sitting all day.”

“Suit yourself.” Tatian sat down at the desk and touched the spot that lit the desktop screens. Nothing popped to the surface, neither urgent mail nor internal files requiring instant attention, and he ran his hand across the shadowscreen, transforming the display to meaningless geometric patterns. “So what can I do for you?”

“I hear you had a busy day,” Jhirad said.

Tatian glanced at þim: the mosstaas , then. “I suppose.”

“Bribing the mosstaas in broad daylight right in the middle of the Souk,” Valmy said, and gave another broad grin. “Even for Hara, that’s ballsy.”

“I don’t see any Harans objecting,” Tatian said, after a moment. “Or are you here on the chief’s behalf?”

Jhirad snorted. “Godchep Stiller wouldn’t care if you paid off a murder in his office, as long as he got his cut.”

“True,” Tatian said. “So…”

“A friendly warning,” Valmy said, and Jhirad frowned.

“Not even that. Call it advice, Tatian—and friendly advice, too.”

Tatian said nothing, waiting, watching them across the desk-top that ran with color. Jhirad and Valmy had been on Hara for nearly two hundred kilohours—better than sixteen local years, four standard contracts—and in that time they had gotten a reputation as tough but honest. If they were offering a warning, or advice, whatever they wanted to call it, he would be a fool not to listen to them.

Jhirad seemed to take his silence for consent. “Local politics are going to be complicated this year. You don’t want—none of us off-worlders want to get involved in it. You can’t win friends, not this time.”

“Call off Shan Reiss,” Valmy said, and didn’t bother to smile this time.

“What’s your problem with Reiss?” Tatian asked. “It was me who paid off the mosstaas today.”

Jhirad gave ρis partner an irritated glance. “Reiss was, is already involved, and not just in politics. He’s speaking for a man who wants to emigrate, he’s one of the witnesses who’ll swear that Destany hasn’t done trade for the required twenty kilohours.”

“That would be Reiss’s business,” Tatian said. “And yours. And it’s all legal. I never knew you two to be so concerned with one emigration case before. So tell me what’s really going on.”

Valmy laughed softly. “Your point.”

“Thanks,” Tatian said, and waited.

“What’s going on is, the local authorities have asked that we intervene,” Jhirad said. “The request comes from the highest level.”

Tatian stared at ρim for a long moment, unable to believe what he’d heard. Temelathe Stane was notorious for keeping the Concord authorities at arms’ length, for insisting on the absolute independence of the indigenous institutions. For him to ask for help—to request that the IDCA intervene in an emigration case—was almost unimaginable.

“Our bosses,” Valmy said, “would like to establish the precedent.”

“I bet they would,” Tatian said.