Melissa Scott - Shadow Man

“What’ve you got under there?” the leader asked. “Show us, Warreven. Show us what a man you are.”

“Go to hell,” Warreven said, and the docker raised his hook again.

“Show us,” the leader said.

Warreven stood frozen for an instant, the fog cold on his exposed skin, burning on the long cut that ran from collarbone to hip. He couldn’t fight them, not unarmed—not even if he was armed—and it might get them out of this alive. He’d done worse, he told himself, and didn’t believe it.

“Need some help?” the leader asked, and Warreven achieved a sneer.

“Not from you,” he said, and lifted his hands to the tunic’s neck. He pulled the torn cloth apart, baring his breasts to the fog and the cold. The house-lights left no hope of concealment; he stood half naked and fought to seem unashamed. The ranas mimed laughter—no, he thought, they were laughing behind their masks and knew his cheeks were burning.

The leader laughed softly and turned to Haliday. “And what about you, jillamie ?”

“Go to hell,” Haliday said.

Behind 3er, a window scraped up in the wall of houses. Warreven looked up, letting the torn tunic fall closed again, but saw no one in the narrow opening. All the windows were still dark, just the one open a handspan at the bottom. A voice came from it, high and quavering with age or fear.

“I’ve called the mosstaas . I’ve called them.”

There was a moment of silence, of stillness, the ranas for an instant unmoving, and then the leader laughed behind his mask. More slowly, another rana mimed laughter, and then a second, and a third.

“We don’t need to worry about that,” the leader said, and pointed his stick at Haliday again. The window slammed down again behind them. “So what are you, jillamie ? We can’t tell.”

Haliday glared at him. “I’m a herm.”

“No such thing, not on Hara,” the leader murmured.

“I’m still a herm.” Haliday stood braced and rigid, fists clenched, ready to take them all on.

Warreven recognized the blind fury, had seen it before and knew enough to fear it, to fear what 3e would say or do. “Hal—” he began, and bit off the word before it was formed.

The rana leader said, “We don’t have herms on Hara, just titticocks who can’t make up their minds. So which are you, jillamie , or do we have to decide for you?”

“I’m a herm,” Haliday said again.

The leader shook his stick, and it bent at the three joints, cracking loudly. Three of the ranas lunged for Haliday, who swung to face them, one arm raised to block the first blow, the other striking for the nearest rana’s stomach. Warreven grabbed for another rana’s shoulder, pulling him partially away from Haliday, felt hands on his own shoulder and, painfully, on his hair. He drove his elbow into someone’s ribs, heard a gasp of pain, but the grip on his hair didn’t loosen. A fist slammed into his kidneys; something else—something harder, he caught a blurred glimpse of what might have been a knobstick or the end of one of the clubs—caught him a glancing blow along one cheekbone. Pain exploded in his head, down his neck, sharp yellow lights flowering across his vision. He tried to kick the ranas holding him, but his knees buckled instead, and he sagged bonelessly in their grip. He heard Haliday cry out, a short, meaningless sound, saw through a haze of tears and doubled vision 3im stumble and fall huddled to the pavement. The ranas moved in, but not too close, taking turns and leaving each other plenty of room to swing their clubs.

“Boy or girl?” the leader said, and laughed aloud.

“Hal!” Warreven struggled to get his feet under him, to shake himself free of the hands on him. Someone hit him again, twice, body and head; he tasted blood, and knew his legs wouldn’t hold him. His sight was going, or maybe the house-lights had gone out, and then a whistle sounded, and the ranas abruptly let him go. He fell to his hands and knees, shook his head in a desperate attempt to clear his vision, but only set off another wave of light and pain, knifing down his neck and spine. He heard footsteps, running away, the sound flattened by the fog, and thought the street was empty again—except for Haliday.

Ȝe lay crumpled, body drawn in on itself, arms still lifted to protect 3er head. There was blood on the pavement, smears and a spreading pool, almost black in the house-lights. Warreven dragged himself to 3im, not daring to try to stand. He heard a window open, and then another and another, but didn’t bother looking—he doubted if he could have seen that far—reached awkwardly for Haliday instead. Ȝer face was a mess, swollen and bloodied; one arm was visibly broken, bent between wrist and elbow. He touched 3er neck, feeling for a pulse; 3er skin was cold under his fingers, and he felt nothing. He thought 3er chest was moving a little, but couldn’t be sure. Please don’t let 3im be dead, he thought, and heard a door open behind him. This time, he did turn, newly afraid, to see a woman standing there, poised to slam the door shut again if there was more trouble. She looked old and frail, shaal pulled tight around her shoulders.

“I called the Emergency,” she said, and he thought she might have been the person who had called the mosstaas before. In the distance, he heard the sound of a siren, drawing rapidly closer; he hoped, vaguely, that they would see him and Haliday before they came too far down the street. Red lights flared through the fog, and the noise of the siren was suddenly overwhelming. He tried to turn, to call to them, but the world seemed to swing under him, and he collapsed sideways on the cold paving.

Gay: (Concord) one of the nine sexual preferences generally recognized by Concord culture; denotes a person who prefers to be intimate with others of exactly the same gender.

Tatian woke to a wail of sirens and lay for a second in the red- pulsing darkness of his bedroom before he realized that the sound was coming from the communications system. He swore under his breath, and fumbled for the remote that lay beside the bed, touching the keypad to bring up the lights and accept the incoming message. He grimaced as the light hit his eyes, blinked hard, and jammed fingers into his tangled hair. The air from the environmental system was dank and smelled strongly of the sea. He heard the media center come on in the main room, and then the relay screen on the wall beside his bed lit, asking if he wanted to establish a reciprocal transmission.

“Not likely,” Tatian muttered, and then, because it was an older system, jabbed blindly at the remote.

The screen blinked confirmation—I/T VIDEO AND AUDIO, O/T AUDIO ONLY—and opened like a window on bright lights and white-painted walls and a face that he didn’t immediately recognize. He recognized the background first—hospitals were the same all over human space—and only then realized it was Warreven beneath the bruises.

“Tatian?” Ȝer voice sounded small, lighter than usual, distorted by 3er swollen mouth.

“I’m here,” Tatian answered. “Jesus, what happened to you?” Or do I need to ask? I warned you there would be trouble — He killed the thought, startled by his own response, frightened by the ugly swellings. One eye was covered with a dark bandage, the cheek- bone beneath it puffed and misshapen, 3er lower lip split and swollen into an ugly pout. Ȝe was standing close to the sending unit—it would be a cheap pay-as-you-go unit, and they were close-focus at the best of times, a poor substitute for real privacy—but Tatian thought he could see the iridescent shape of a neck brace below the bruised chin. “Are you all right?”