Jo Clayton: Shadowplay

Bossman Prissyface. He wasn't much taller than her, a meager man, all thin bone and stringy muscle. Firmly in charge of the operation. Deft hand with locks and alarms. She stole a look at him and found it hard to picture him as a prowler. He was a bookkeeper waiting for a bus, a prim, little bookkeeper who was in no hurry to get where he was going. A cool man, but weird. He handled her sudden appearance without a blink, just folded her in and went on. She kept probing at him, using her Talent like a snake's tongue, tasting his reactions to her so she could figure out how to trick him into leaving an opening she could use to get out of this mess. He was opaque as a boulder and seemed about as responsive, but there was something srAry… the way he handled his crew… the way he kept control of them all with so little effort… no feeling in him… at least, none that she could discover, something… Walk on your toes round this one, Shadow, don't jump till you know how long's his reach.

She edged around so she could see the man who jumped her. Lute. Was that his name or short for Lieutenant? Not something you make music from, no indeed. Sleek as a seal and fast? sail he was fast. Could be a heavyworlder, though he wasn't built like the ones she knew. Could be some kind of freak. Good name for him-Freak. He killed for the pleasure of it, she could smell it on him, see it in the wet gleam of his eyes. He was watching her now, doing her over and over in his head. She did NOT touch him with her talent. Yukh! Bossman had him firmly under thumb, thank whatever.

The other three squatting silently and patiently beside the captives, they were obviously mercs, hired for the job and waiting for the boss to get on with it. She touched them, read self-satisfaction and hot pride. Men with reps and fiercely protective of them. Holding themselves higher than the scays and jacks competing with them for jobs. They reeked contentment, which told her they had a leader they liked who did things the way they liked them done.

She glanced at her ringchron. Around an hour before the Ji shuttle started loading. There wasn't all that much time for maneuvering. She sneaked another look at Lute. Not much chance either.

She heard a rattle-and some thumps next office over, then the click-clack of the guard's heels. The door shook in its slot, the latch rattled as he tried it. Get out of here, you creep.

The lock held and he moved on. Bossman sat listening intently until the sounds outside faded. One minute crept past, another. "Go, Lute," he said. "Number One, have your men prepare the Avatars."

Shadith blinked. Avatars?

Lute walked a hand along the back wall like a polypodal measuring worm, then made four swift sweeps of the slicer he'd held against Shadith's head; the cuts were only a few molecules wide, visible if you stuck your nose against the wallboard, otherwise not. He laid the slicer on the desk, gave Shadith a hard look that told her to keep her hands to herself, took twinned suction cups from his shouldertote, set them against the board, slapped the lever down with the heel of his hand and eased the cutaway section from the wall, opening a long narrow hole that exposed the steel lattice of a repairway. He leaned the panel against the desk, collected the slicer, and stood waiting.

While Lute was opening the wall, the mere answering to Number One got to his feet, made a quick hand sign to Two and Three, watched as they shrugged off equipment packs, took out a-g units and leashes. They belted the units to the captives, stretched the men horizontally on the lift fields and whipped the leashes about them, then they got to their feet and stood holding the leash handles, the bagged men floating waist high like oddly shaped balloons.

Bossman rose. "Take them out." He waited until the mercs had tugged the captives through the hole. "Shadith."

"Yes?" Shadith tensed.

"On your feet, child. We are leaving."

She slipped hastily off the desk, stood with her eyes wide and beseeching, her arms stiff at her sides, her hands knotted into fists, playing terrified child with everything in her-and underneath the play trying to convince herself she wasn't as scared as she felt. All right, Shadow, virgin, baby, pull out the stops and hit him hard.

"Let me go, please. I won't say anything. I'll be gone in an hour or so. You saved me from him, I owe you. I promise I won't say anything."

He produced a benign smile with no benignity behind it, not a trace of empathy or sympathy, as if they came from an organ he'd had excised or maybe was born without. He brushed her words away like wind noises or something with even less meaning. "Number One, leash the girl, take her out."

The burly chief merc clipped a leash around Shadith's. waist, slapped her behind and pointed at the opening. Asshole, keep your hands to yourself.

She was fuming as she climbed through and swung over the rail onto the catwalk. What would you do, oinkoid, if I went weeping to Bossman Prissface and said you promised he wouldn't sully poor little virgin me?

She started to giggle, clapped her hand over her mouth, sucked in her cheeks as the giggles threatened to burst out of her; Bossman was coming through and she had a strong feeling he wouldn't approve.

Still fizzing with suppressed giggles she watched Lute back onto the catwalk and pull the cutout section of wallboard into place after him. He wiggled the panel until he was satisfied with the fit, slapped glue patches around the cut, waited until they were set, then tripped the lever on the vacuum cups and caught them as they fell away. He tucked them into his shouldertote and stood waiting.

All desire to laugh drained out of her. It wasn't funny, not funny at all.

Bossman stepped from the shadows. "Go," he said.

Lute nodded, came loping past Shadith, edged by the two mercs and their drifting captives and went off down the catwalk; the meres followed him, towing the floating "Avatars" behind them, the bodies banging against the rails, awkward, unhandy burdens dragging back on them as they ran.

Number One waggled Shadith's leash. "Gee-up," he said.

Gritting her teeth, Shadith started after them, loping over the knitted steel mesh; it rattled and gave a little under their boots, made silence impossible. They didn't seem to mind the noise. No point in yelling for help, that's clear.

Following Lute (who seemed to be sniffing the route from the air itself) they ran without hesitation along the narrow ways, bending low when a walk overhead came zooming down until even Shadith couldn't stand upright, turning corners so acute the mercs with the captives had to rotate the bodies until they were vertical and muscle them into the other walkway. They passed half a hundred crossings, shifted through dozens of direction changes, went down ramps and up ramps, on and on through a dusty gray twilight.

Take away the leash (and she probably could have jerked free if she moved suddenly enough)-and her dismay at the thought of Lute sniffing after her through that murky twilight, beyond whatever restraints Bossman put on him-and she might have darted off down one of those. sideways, counting on speed and agility to keep her loose long enough to find her way back into the Station proper. She didn't try it.

She could sense feral things scrambling through the dark around them; if she wanted to reassemble her horde, she could do it in a gasp and a half. She didn't try it.

At times they ran through ragged veils of old web choked with dust; there were spiders like clots of darkness stirring in the shadows, hating and fearing them, heavy with poison. It wouldn't take much pushing to goad them into an attack. If she extended herself, she-could control hundreds of them, could bring them scuttling along the upper ways and launch them at the men when time and circumstance seemed optimum. She didn't try that either.