Melissa Scott - Shadow Man

“Fine,” Warreven said, through clenched teeth. His good intentions evaporated, fueled by the anger and the fear of the night before. “Treat it like it’s my fault for being born. But I do exist, we exist, halvings —” He broke off, angry that he’d used the old word, substituted the creole terms, awkward on the tongue. “—herms, mems, fems, and we’ve existed since our people left Earth. You can’t possibly believe it’s sin, unresisted entropy, whatever the vieuvant s are calling it these days. Hyperlumin is mutagenic, it made us—space travel made us, you can’t go FTL without the drug.”

“That’s what the off-worlders say,” Tendlathe said. His face was tight and set behind the thin beard. “It’s their excuse. But we don’t have to be like them. We’re not the same.”

“We’re not that different, either,” Warreven said. “You talk like they’re aliens or something.”

“They are,” Tendlathe answered. “In every way that matters, they are aliens. That’s what this is really about, Raven, don’t you see? We aren’t like them, and we can’t become like them. We, what we are, is too important, we’re all that’s left of what people, human beings, are supposed to be, and if we change, that’s lost forever.”

Warreven stared at him for a long moment, shook his head to hide the fact that he had no idea what he should say. He could smell dried broadleaf kelp, wondered if a crate had broken open somewhere along the Gran’quai. “We’ve already changed. We’re the same species,” he said at last, and wasn’t surprised when Tendlathe shook his head.

“Not anymore we’re not. And I refuse to believe that they are human.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” Warreven said.

Tendlathe laughed. “I’m right. Right for Hara, anyway, right for us. Just because I recognize the truth doesn’t make me crazy.”

“If they’re not human,” Warreven said slowly, “what does that make me, Ten? I’m a herm, that’s real, I’ve got tits and a cock and a cunt, and what does that make me?”

“You can pass for a man,” Tendlathe said, after a moment. “You can make the effort.”

“Pass for human,” Warreven said bitterly. “Fuck you, Tendlathe.” He turned away, blind angry even in the relative shade, started toward the stairs that led to the Embankment. Tendlathe’s voice floated after him.

“I meant what I said, Warreven.”

Warreven swung around, seeing the dark shape against the sunset sky. “So did I.”

He took the long way to Blind Point, as much to give himself time to calm down as to avoid the streets where the ghost ranas had been seen. At the fountain that marked the intersection of Hauksey and Blakelams streets, he stopped and scooped water from the pool, splashing some on his face before he drank. The fountain on its raised triangle of land was quiet, as quiet as the Harbor Market, and he seated himself on its broad ledge, looking back toward the sea. Normally, the little square would be full of vendors, selling everything from sweetrum to feelgood and doutfire, but today there was only a thin herm with a half-empty basket of flowers. She was dressed like a woman in thin, clinging trousers and the traditional tight-laced bodice, carelessly stuffed to make her breasts seem larger than they were. From where he sat, Warreven could see the outline of the pads beneath the fabric. She saw him looking, and turned toward him, tucking her basket under her arm.

“Æ, brother, did you come from the Market?”

Warreven nodded, not moving.

“I have friends there,” she said, “and I worry.”

“They should be all right,” Warreven said. “I was there. The mosstaas shut down the ranas that were there—” He bit down hard on his own anger, seeing the same shock reflected in the other’s face, and continued more calmly. “Nobody was hurt, though, everyone went peaceably.”

The flower seller sighed, and set her basket between them on the lip of the basin. “That’s good news, brother.” She reached into the water, cupping a double handful, and drank noisily. She shook her hands, water still running down her chin, and said, “I heard there was going to be trouble. But I also heard that Temelathe told the mosstaas hands off.”

Warreven hissed between his teeth, the country sound that indicated incredulity. “I wouldn’t count on it, my sister.”

The flower seller shrugged, wiping her hands on her thighs. The fabric clung, sweat-damp, outlining thin legs. Warreven was suddenly aware of their shape, of the fullness in her— 3er—crotch, and the breasts padded to fill the too-large bodice. It had been years, it seemed, since he had looked at another halving , another herm, besides Haliday, and really seen the bodies that mirrored his own. And even Haliday had always seemed more man than herm or woman, if only because they’d been boys together…. And Haliday was right, he realized suddenly. They couldn’t pass, none of them, no matter how much they tried, at least not well enough to satisfy Tendlathe and the people like him.

“If they haven’t done anything,” the flower seller said, “it might be true.”

“They haven’t done anything yet,” Warreven said, and 3e grinned, revealing a missing tooth at the side of 3er mouth.

“And I don’t intend to count on that, my brother.” Ȝe hoisted 3er basket, resting it on 3er narrow hip—a woman’s gesture? a human gesture?—and stepped gracefully off the edge of the fountain.

He didn’t watch 3er go, suddenly, coldly, afraid.

Jillamie : (Hara) literally “girlfriend"; always very casual, and can easily become an insult.

The fog had come in while they were in Bon’Ador, filling the streets that led up from Harborside. From the doorway of the club, Warreven could see the lighthouse tower at Blind Point rising above the heavy layers of vapor, the beam of light cutting a golden wedge through the dank air. To his left, the empty street ran straight to the Glassmarket, drowned in cloud. The sunken center held the fog like a basin, only the poles of the streetlights rising out of the mass: even if it hadn’t been well after hours, the merchants would have had to close. A single figure was moving on the larger sales platform—a cleaner, or maybe a late-closing merchant, shaal -hooded against the damp. He or she was knee-deep in fog, and more wisps curled and eddied, fine as smoke, around her/his shoulders, clearly visible in the market lights. Warreven caught his breath, admiring the image, and the door opened behind him.

“Any luck?”

Haliday stepped up beside him, shaking 3er head. “There’s not a car or rover to be had, for love or money. The service said, maybe in an hour, but Reinier wants us out of here.”

“He could let us wait,” Warreven said, irritated, and Haliday shrugged.

“He’s got his license to think of. He said the mosstaas and the Service Board have been breathing down his neck.”

“He could close the damn bar,” Warreven said, and sighed, looking back toward Blind Point. There was no one else in sight—not surprising on a night like this—and the street seemed to vanish before it reached the top of the hill, obscured by a drift of fog. “I don’t suppose we could get a trolley.”

“It’s a fifteen-minute walk to Harborside, or thirty to Terminus, and we’d never make that before they shut down,” Haliday said. “We could make it home in that.”

Warreven hesitated. He didn’t want to walk, not tonight, not with the ghost ranas still loose, but he especially didn’t want to have to cross the streets above Dock Row where they’d been most active to get to the trolley station at Harborside. “I guess we walk,” he said, and Haliday nodded.