Melissa Scott - Shadow Man

“You see,” Temelathe said. “They are good, aren’t they?”

“They seem—talented,” Tatian answered, and handed back the glasses, wondering what he should have said. The Old Dame would have known, but %e was on New Antioch, and he was responsible for %er business here.

Temelathe laughed, throwing his head back, and a few of the other Stanes managed to laugh with him. Tendlathe lifted both eyebrows in disbelieving disdain. His color was coming back a little, but his mouth was still set in that faint, unreal smile.

“They are talented,” Temelathe said, still grinning hugely. “Clever and talented, that’s Stiller for you. No sense, but clever as monkeys. Of course, good mimics don’t make good actors, do they, ser Mhyre? And Lammasin Stiller’s a really talented mimic.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Tatian said, stiff-lipped. He felt a chill run through the room.

Tendlathe said, “The mosstaas should clear the market.”

Temelathe shook his head. “Nonsense. Let Stiller—let the Modernists, it’s not even all of Stiller, though it will be if I turned the mosstaas on them—let them have their day. It won’t matter.”

“This is what happens when you let people like Warreven have their say. Yes, it matters,” Tendlathe said, and his father took him firmly by the arm. Tatian saw the younger man flinch before he had himself under control again.

“It doesn’t, and it won’t,” Temelathe said firmly. “Let it be.” He looked around the room, visibly gathering his people. “Come, come, the first remove must be ready. Time and past for us to be fed.”

Most of the Stanes trailed obediently after him. Tatian waited in the doorway until the people on the balcony had filed past him and followed more slowly.

“Christ.” The voice and the curse were off-world, and Tatian turned to find Chavvin Annek at his elbow. She was the head of operations at the port, one of the most important off-worlders on Hara, someone whom even Temelathe would not want wantonly to offend; even so, Tatian wished she would keep her voice down.

“That’s a nasty thing to do to Lammasin,” she went on. “That was meant to travel, that little verdict. He’ll have a hard time finding work now. Or worse.”

Tatian stared at her, unable quite for an instant to believe what she was saying. But this was Hara, and Temelathe did have that kind of power—and there was nothing at all that he or Annek could do about it.

He touched her arm gently, turned her toward the dining room. “Dinner, Annek.”

“He’s a friend. Lammasin, I mean. Oh, damn it, I’ve got to get word to him.”

“He’s bound to hear soon enough,” Tatian said.

“Not necessarily.” Annek shook her head. “This could mean real trouble for him.”

“I take it he’s not on the net?”

“No.” Annek lowered her voice. “Tatian, I need to ask a favor. I’ll owe you for it, I promise.”

Tatian looked warily at her. Having the port’s head of operations owe him a favor could be a very useful thing, certainly, but he’d already been warned away from Haran politics. “If I can, I will,” he said, and hoped it would be something reasonable.

“When we’re done here, and it can’t be soon enough, I’ve got to find Lammasin, warn him, before that bastard Tendlathe sets the mosstaas on him,” Annek said. “I don’t want to run the Dock Row bars alone. Will you come with me?”

Tatian hesitated. He could escort her safely enough—and it wouldn’t do him any harm to be seen to be a friend of Chavvin Annek’s this time of year, a voice whispered at the back of his mind. “All right,” he said. “Now, dinner. Before someone wonders where we are.”

Annek sighed, forced a smile. “You’re right, and thank you. But I can’t say I’m very hungry.”

“Nor am I,” Tatian answered, and they went on together into the brightly lit dining room.

Herm. (Concord) human being possessing testes and ovaries and some aspects of male and female genitalia; 3e, 3er, 3im, 3imself.

For once, the sky had stayed clear for most of the baanket . As he and Folhare crested the hill above the Harbor Market, he could look across the lights of the harbor and see the brightest stars vivid against the seaward horizon. Only a few wisps of night haze obscured the familiar patterns; the moon was almost down, its thin crescent blurred by a thicker streak of cloud.

“A gorgeous night,” he said, and Folhare grinned.

“In more ways than one.”

Warreven smiled in response, and the land breeze strengthened, bringing with it the sound of drumming from the Glassmarket. A whistle shrieked, shrill and raucous, but then the wind eased, and the drums faded again. “Do you think the presance did any good?”

“It certainly got people’s attention,” Folhare said lightly.

“Seriously, Folhare.”

She didn’t answer for a moment, the only noise the click of her shoes against the paving. They were still a hundred meters above the Embankment, where the bars and dance houses stayed open all night, farther still from Dockside and the Gran’quai, where ships loaded and off-loaded cargo without regard to the clock. Warreven was suddenly aware of the empty street, the dark side alleys, and glanced reflexively behind him—but the night of the baanket was usually fairly quiet. Even so, he wasn’t sorry to see the blue glow of a police light on the side of a building a few meters farther along, marking an emergency summons box. Not that the mosstaas would be much help—it was always anyone’s guess if they would actually respond to a call, though the better districts paid a service fee to make sure of it—but the automatic alarm would wake anyone sleeping in the apartments above the shops and warehouses, and people were usually quick to keep the peace in their own neighborhoods.

“I hope so,” Folhare said at last. “I do think so. It made the issue pretty clear—and if nothing else, it got them laughing at Temelathe. That’s something, anyway.”

Warreven nodded. That had been impressive, the crowd’s gasps and the startled, not-quite-approving murmurs as people realized who the presance ’s central figure was meant to represent, and then the spreading laughter, shock giving way to titillated amusement when the absurdity of the presentation struck home. Not everyone would believe it, of course, but for a few minutes, the Most Important Man had been reduced to a bumbling pimp. “He’s going to be furious. Your people had better keep their heads down for a while. Was that Lammasin who was doing Temelathe?”

“Yes.” Folhare gave a rueful smile. “He was supposed to be better masked than that. Oh, well, he’s scheduled to do some work in Irenfot after the holiday, so that ought to keep him out of trouble.”

“I hope so,” Warreven said. They had reached the Embankment then, and he turned right onto the broad walkway. The streetlights were brighter, more closely spaced, and most of the buildings were also lit, lights around a doorway or tracing a stylized, three-armed tree to indicate an open bar. Drumming and voices spilled out into the street as a door opened, were cut off again, and two mems left arm in arm, the same shaal thrown defiantly around their shoulders. Warreven watched them go, idly curious, and was not surprised to see them draw apart before they’d reached the first streetlight, the taller mem wrapping the shaal around his head to pass for male.

“Shall we try Shinbone?” Folhare asked, and Warreven nodded. That was his favorite among the dance houses; they hired decent drummers and kept the peace among the mix of clients.