Jo Clayton - The Burning Ground

Print up a new copy and find a see-through that doesn’t look like it’s been here-since year one.”

“Where’s that ‘bot? There’s a pile of kree shit in this drawer deep enough to drown in.”

“Eight? Isn’t that the one Tippa spilled the tasse of likken on at the year turn party? Ate through the cover and glued half the pages together. Should be paperwork on that somewhere around. Avol”

“‘Bot’s blown a bearing, Torml took it over to shop to see what Bijjer can do. Either wait or dump it yourself.”

The young mal leaned out the door to his cubicle. “Hah?”

“You got the workup for eight?”

“Anybody remember which closet has the paper stores?”

“Number two, you gant. You think we want to haul tail feathers farther’n we have to? Parts in one, paper in two.”

“Bearing? How in…”

In spite of the verbal clutter, the cleanup was going quickly and efficiently enough, perhaps because the workers were limited to the techs with access to this building. By the time the Base Exec arrived, Shadith was seething with impatience. In all the chatter she still hadn’t picked up any reason for this activity.

The Exec was a plump and self-important Ptak, a jowly male whose crest had a wet slickness as if he’d overdone the feather cream.

Vourts shooed the techs into a dusty, grubby line along the wall and joined them there, those anachronistic lenses glittering in the glare and doing a fair job of concealing her eyes.

The Exec nodded at them, but didn’t speak as he stalked to the workstation at the end of the row. He pulled up a privacy shield and proceeded to enter his override key, three linked words in tripptakh, the broken word babble invented by parents for talking over their chilclren?s heads. Shadith tucked ‘the sequence into memory and watched with amused astonishment as-he called up lists of passwords, eyes-only files, access logs, and other artifacts of the techs’ daily activities. With slow, labored touches on the sensor board and constant consultation of the notebook at his side, he changed the file names into more tripptakh. When he finished, he grunted with satisfaction, logged off, and lowered the shields. He got to his feet and snapped his fingers. As the techs broke the line and went back to their cleaning, he wandered about the room, kicking at debris and running his finger across surfaces, sneering at the dust he picked up.

At the door, he turned. “The Col-Kirag will be here in two hours. Vourts, you and Ke’ik will be on duty here, go get cleaned up. Rest of you, I want this place spotless by the time that flier lands. And I’ll expect you to be on line with the honor guard ready for inspection. Drill Field. We won’t be making her climb ladders. For your ears only, my sources say she’s on a royal tear, some local git has been putting out antiwar songs that are making the tourists nervous, at least they were before she blocked that part of the feed. And that Cobben that fell over its feet and did zip that they were supposed to-they screwed death duties out of her and she’s looking for hide to chew on.”

Shadith sat up, rubbed at her temples.

A hand touched her arm. Yseyl held out a mug of tea. “Thought you might like this.” She waited till Shadith got down a few swallows, said, “Anything interesting?”

“Think so. We’re about to be the benefactors of a bit of luck I can brag I set up. The song that got you and the rest of them. And a warning I slipped in.” She swallowed a gulp of tea. “Ah, that’s good. It always feels like a gift when doing the ethical thing turns out to be good tactics.”

Yseyl raised her brows.

“Never mind. Just a stroke for my soul.” Shadith finished the tea and set the mug beside her. “Time to concentrate on the practical. There’ll be a juiced-up flier on that open ground by the lake. Very convenient. Means we don’t have to head for the hollow which cuts the escape route nearly in half. And if we have a staying rain tonight, we could all get out intact.”

The wind shifted and a spatter of rain caught Shadith in the face. She wiped her eyes clear and moved forward again, running bent low, two steps behind the child Zot who was ghosting along as silent as the older locals. It was a dreary night, heavily overcast, the wind erratic, sometimes there, sometimes not, the rain a weak but steady drizzle, just enough to make them all uncomfortable and the footing difficult. A grand night for sneaks, though. The Ptaks were inside where they were comfortable, warm and dry. No one would be out in this unless he had to.

She straightened when she reached the darkness under the trees at the edge of the Drill Field, took the disruptor case from Yseyl, and watched with amazement as the Pima fern shimmered into a patch of mist and trotted toward the flier. Little gray ghost? I was closer than I knew Digby will skin me bald if I let this one get away. Nine dealers down the drain, so Cerex said. Didn’t know what hit them. I can see why.

Yseyl used the stunner. The field burned against Shadith’s reach, like touching nettles it was. Twice. A sense of quick purposeful activity. Then a lull while she waited.

Shadith tapped Luca’s arm, pointed.

The rain was coming down harder as Luca, Wann, and young Zot ran toward the flier; even though they lacked

Yseyl’s gift, in the darkness they were only visible if the watcher knew where to look. When they reached the flier, there was a sudden flare of pale grayish light, a moonlight through clouds effect as Yseyl opened the hatch. Three dark shapes crossed the light, then it shrank and vanished as the door swung shut.

A moment later Yseyl was back. “They’re in and ready,” she muttered. “I gave Luca Cerex’s stunrod in case there’s trouble.” She took the disruptor from Shadith. “Your job next.”

They reached the thorn hedge without trouble. Even the nightbirds were huddling in their nests.

Bending over the cutter to shield it from the rain, Shadith shortened the blade and used millisecond bursts to slice through stems of the thornbush so they could clear a narrow path through it, angled so the cut wouldn’t be easily visible from a short distance off.

When the six of them were inside the hedge, standing up to their ankles in sloppy mud, Shadith reached through the building. The strengthening rain hammering against her arm, she touched Hidan’s shoulder. “I read two. You?” she murmured.

+Two. In the place with the big windows.+

“Right.” Shadith leaned toward to Yseyl. “Third window from the end. There.” She pointed at one of the storeroom windows. “Center the hole over that.”

Yseyl activated the disruptor.

Because the Ptaks felt no need to provide visual clues to the shield round the Center, to the eye nothing seemed to be happening-and Shadith’s reach only gave her a vague sense of agitation. She closed her eyes and scanned the field again. With the additional concentration she could read faint ripples in the field plane, flowing about a circular opening the size of her hand. This is going to be a problem: tWhen I scan, I can’t see t e.window; when.I see the window, I can’t read the field.

Hidan gasped.

Shadith swung round to face xe. +What?+ she signed, making the signs large so they’d be visible.

+A hole in nothing. I can thin it growing.+

Interesting. +Tell me when it stops growing.+ She took the climbing pole from the break-in kit she’d clipped to her belt, gave it the prescribed twist, and held it away from her as the memormel took its primary shape. When the form was stable, she set the base on the ground and waited.

+Now.+

“Is the whole window clear?” She pitched the words to carry above the hiss of the rain.