Jo Clayton: Shadowplay

She called up the service menu, smiled grimly as she saw the option the loa had murmured in her ear. Any garment purchased here could be delivered anywhere in the known universe the purchaser specified, if she was willing to pay the price. Delivery by Register Circuit Drone, security guaranteed; it'd take two months to reach Wolff, but it'd sure's hell get there. The guard couldn't stop the Drone or interfere with it. Even the Head Hoofta of the Guard Service couldn't touch a Drone or its contents. You're one smart little bint, Shadow old girl. Yeaaah.

She scowled at the holo. The image was turning to show the back of a narrow gown, a green and gold sheath of Botareel spider silk. "I'll take this," she said. "Box it and send it by Register Circuit Drone to Wolff for Aleytys of Wolff, Hunter. No other designation required. I wish to enclose a card with a handwritten personal message."

Her image bowed; a tentacle of the Station Kephalos spoke to her through its mouth: "Understood. A Drone is available and has been placed at your service, despina. Do you wish a stylus provided with the card?"

"I have mine. It is permitted?"

"Provide a sample of the ink."

Shadith groped in her shoulderbag, found her stylus and scribbled a line across the test sheet extruded from the slot above the panel.

"Acceptable. The stylus is permitted."

"Time limit?"

"For thirty spotchala zurst, the Drone will be held available for one hour standard."

"Ten minutes will be sufficient. How much?"

"Half zurst."

"Confirm the option. Cost to Wolff?"

"Two thousand zurst."

"Confirm the option. Dispatch the Drone the moment the card is received. I will also require a fax tiket with details of the transaction printed out."

"It will be provided. Time starts… now."

Shadith leaned forward, plucked the card from its slot, laid it on the tray the pulochair extruded for her convenience. She chewed on her lip as she thought over what she wanted to say, then she took up the stylus and wrote, using her birthlangue. She was the last Weaver of Shayalin and she'd died the first time over twenty thousand years ago; Aleytys could read Shallana weave, so could Harskari and Swardheld, but no one else (particularly not the Station Kephalos which had to be recording what she wrote). She laid out her problem, described the guard, finished: If I don't message you from University within a few days after this reaches you, Lee, it means I'm either dead or in deep shit. Come along and raise all kinds of hell in my memory, dear friend. Make this slime sorry he was born.

She slid the card back in its slot, pressed her credit bracelet to the stripper and tore off the fax tiket that arrived half a tick later. She looked at it, smiled. If you get your hands on me, I'll shove this in your face. Read it and know you're a dead man walking.

She slid the tiket into her shoulderbag and left the booth, almost dancing in a triumph that drained from her when she stepped through the portal and saw him standing in her way.

"Buy ya drink, Bait?" He reached for her.

She shied away from him, stumbled into the entourage of the Clovel Matriarch she'd seen on a lower level. Swearing at her stupidity, angry and afraid, she went scurrying off with the guard's laughter and the screeches of the Matriarch ringing in her ears; moving as fast as she could without actually running, she went up and up until she reached the highest level and there was nowhere left to go.

There was a salt taste on her tongue-she'd bitten her lip hard enough to draw blood, acid in her throat and knots in her belly and her head wasn't working. Futile and feeble. Come on, Shadow, get it together. Decorticate the bastard. Eviscerate him. Ahlahlah, grand words, why don't you stop spinning words and DO something?

Not a good idea to go straight at him. He had reach on her, muscle enough to overwhelm her speed. The body she had now was strong for its size, quick and sure; she'd trained it to fight and was satisfied with the results, but there was no way she could face him without some sort of edge.

She looked over her shoulder, he was just standing there, watching her. A sudden attack might do it; get him set up, take him in a rush and flip him over the rail, then run for the Gate. Some hope. And if I had my stunner… even more futile, I can't fight the whole damn guard force…

She pulled her hand nervously across her mouth. That was the real trouble, it wasn't just him, it was the rest of the guard force, the us-against-them bonding of the guards; she'd seen it in their faces as she passed them, sometimes mixed with distaste, sometimes with pleasure, mostly with indifference. She was the outsider, the stranger, the predestined victim. He could play with her, then clean up after himself by tossing what was left of her down the nearest garbage chute and they wouldn't do anything. But if she beat the odds and it was him went down the chute, they'd forget indifference and come for her.

A table with a semi-blanked privacy shield drifted past her, following dozens of others that floated like dandelion fluff in wide slow spirals down and around the immense atrium, in and out of the shimmering holoas, down and down and down until they came to rest for a few minutes in the park below. She'd seen them, but hadn't really noticed them until now; like the loas they were so much a part of the background they were invisible.

With a pot of tea and a pile of lacy honeywafers, the privacy shield tucked tight about her and tension dropping away for a while, she rode her table away from the platform and the guard who stood lounging against the aerie'staurant's facewall, grinning as if he got pleasure from her temporary success in evading him.

It was temporary, she knew, but she was going to enjoy it while she had it. She sipped at the tea and watched the Mall flow past. I've got to take him somewhere out of sight. Where the guards aren't around to notice what happens to him. Hope the Kephalos won't be watching… or the Censors won't lock on the scene before I'm out of here…

She twisted her mouth into a humorless smile. Some chance. Well, Shadow, it's the only chance, might as well grab it…

She rubbed her thumb along her belt: There was one weapon even the Customs scanner hadn't spotted. A garrotte. Menaviddan monfilament. Let her get that around his neck and her knee in his back and it wouldn't matter how strong he was. She'd slice his head off. That's no good unless I can get behind him without him spotting me. Won't be easy, he's creepy but I doubt he's a fool. Some kind of distraction.. what…

A flicker of gray caught her eye. A large rat darted across a stretch of pale sand along a stream cutting through the park below her. A housekeeping bot no larger than her hand speared the rat, scooped up the body and vanished under the trees. She laughed and slapped her hand on the table. "Sheep! Muttonhead! Lardbrain! Distraction nothing, I've got me an army."

She leaned back and sipped at the tea. Her bones felt like they were melting with the relief that swept through her. She had no more doubts. This place was old, old, old, ten centuries at least, there had to be more vermin in the walls than people on the walkways. "My army," she caroled. "My army's going to get you, creep."

As the table swung through the last curl of its down-spiral, she extended her mindride Talent and began teasing together rats and hunting spiders, poison-tailed kapaweys, scavenger d'dabs with teeth capable of reducing bone to paste and whatever else she found roaming that section of the innerways.

When the table settled onto the grass beside the crescent of sand, she took off before the guard had a chance to push away from the tree he was leaning against; she dashed across the park and plunged into the office sector beyond, a place where privacy would be easy to find; the offices were apt to be snoop shielded and what business went on there was done by appointment, with clerk bots left to hold house between visits. She slowed and moved at an easy lope down brightly-lit pastel corridors, past offices and agencies and factory outlets, ignoring the stares of the two or three traders she came on. She could hear the click-clack of the guard's bootheels behind her; he wasn't hurrying, but she could feel his growing triumph; he was preparing himself for the end of the chase.