Jo Clayton: Shadowplay

"Relax. Tigatri's got the Banger located, she's slapped a stasis field around it. That's the good news. Bad news is there's no way of shutting it down and the field eats power like it's cotton candy on a stick. She's in the process of hauling the thing up and carting it to the next world out, that's an iceworld, barren, better it goes than this one. That'll shake up the system some, but Kiskai and these people, they'll survive." She glanced over her shoulder at the war outside the Bubble. "If they don't kill each other off first."

"How long before we can get out of here?"

"About an hour."

"Oh." Shadith hauled her leg up, rested her ankle on the front of the howda. "Well, I lasted this long…" She inspected Aleytys. "Had the baby, hmm?"

"Two months ago. Daughter." Aleytys' eyes went fond and sappy (Shadith's assessment), she smiled down at her hands. "Her name's Lilai. You'll meet her when we go onboard Tigatri. She's beautiful, Shadow, she's a little firehair, got angelcurls redder than mine. Grey's gaga over her. He didn't want me to bring her, but I'm not leaving her like I did my son. No. Never. Where I go, she goes."

Rohant was squatting on his Pyre, scowling. Abruptly his face relaxed. He got to his feet. "Shadow! I'm calling Sassa in, tell your friend to let him through, right?"

Aleytys raised a brow. "Sassa?"

"Hawk."

"Ah." She lay back, closed her eyes. "Bird. Raptor. Admit."

Shadith-eased back, the tension dropping out of her; for the first time in months she was safe, she didn't have to fight any more, she didn't have to scramble or run; she could lie there and let the minutes drift past.

She enjoyed it for about a minute and a half, then her eyes popped open and she sat up again. "Miowee," she said "Kikun…" She broke off, then burst out laughing as the little lacertine came stumping between the pyres, Miowee on his back and Kayataki following behind. "Kikun, if you can't read minds, you do a good imitation."

Kikun wiggled his pointed ears. He deposited Miowee on Rohant's bench and went trotting into the darkness behind the pyres. A minute later he was back with the Paleka Kitskew and her harp. He set them by the bench and dropped into a squat beside them.

Shadith took hold of her leg and shifted it down, caught hold of the; top of the console and pressed herself forward until she could see the singer better. "Looks like your revolution's kicked off to a good start, Mee. What about you? What are you going to do?"

Miowee passed her hand over her tumbled tangled hair. "Wait," she said after a while. "I've got people out there. When the fighting's over… it will be over soon, it can't last… Kaya and I, we'll go back to Aina'iril and see what we can do to help pull things together."

"Asteplikota's going to be looking for who killed his brother."

"I'll face that when… if… I have to."

"Come with us. I'll get you into a place where you can regrow your legs, fix your eye. Starfolk klem, you know."

Miowee covered her face with both hands, hunched her shoulders. For a long time she said nothing, then she shook her head. "No," she said. "No."

"Be reasonable, Mee. The next months are going to be hell and a half, by the time you get back things will've settled down some."

"Reasonable!" The word exploded out of her; she glared up at Shadith. "If I'd been reasonable, I'd be dead. Reasonable snuffs out the light. I never have been reasonable and I'm not going to change now. Look at me. I can make you look at me. I can make you SEE me. I can make you listen. You listen out of pity and horror, but you do listen. And you HEAR!" She sighed. "You're a nice child, Shadow, and you mean to be kind, but you don't understand."

"Maybe not, but…"

"I am who I am, Shadow; I am what I've made myself, and it's something to take pride in. I won't take gifts, I won't unmake ME."

There was a soft, almost subliminal chime. Aleytys sat up, frowned at the console. "There's a swarm of flits coming this way."

Miowee heard her, laughed, not a nice sound. "One gift," she cried. "I'll take one gift. Will your friend open the glass for us, crack the oyset so we can get at the putrid pearl inside? Nistam, the Nistam! Let us have him if we die for it."

Shadith nodded. "Yes. I owe that lot something, too. Lee?"

"If you mean that hill out there, look at the thing, Shadow. It's five deep with stomping locals. I doubt you want me to punch holes through them."

"Kaya, bring the kitskew." Miowee pushed off the bench, crawled rapidly toward the front of the Bubble, humping over the stunned sacerdOtes scattered about the planks, ignoring them, wriggling through the jointed warbot legs, ignoring them. At the outer edge of the stage, she settled herself on the back of a recumbent Na-priest, took the Paleka Kitskew from her daughter, tuned it, and began playing. Improbably, the sound cut through the noise. She'd collected a lug-ike sometime during her crawl; Shadith hadn't seen her do it but was amused, it was so like the woman, practical and outrageous at once.

"Harrowee darrowee yarrowee HOO!" she sang. "Hear ye oh heed ye oh dearie my LOO! I am Miowee, you know me, you DO!"

At first it seemed absurd, singing a song (and a nonsense-song at that) to a war-in-progress, but one, then another, another, and another called out: Miowee. Miowee. Miowee. It's Miowee. Listen. The name went, skittering across and across the crater and those who could did stop to listen.

"The landlords are coming, be ready, my dears. The landlords are swarming in flits to this place." She stopped her chant and played the kitskew for a moment to give them a chance to absorb her warning. "You on the glass, get down for a while, we'll break open the oyset and you pluck the pearl."

Almost before she was finished the men on the portable Palace were jumping down, clearing a space around it. There were no Royal Guards left alive outside the glass, only bodies kicked to jelly. The glass was still intact though opaque from cracks and smears of blood and other body fluids, the people inside invisible.

Aleytys hesitated. "This is what you want, Shadow?"

"It's what I want. You don't know, Lee, you just don't know."

"All right." She tapped a sensor, spoke quietly into the warbot's 'ear'. A second later one of the clones was spitting a cutter at the dome, slicing neatly through the glass, opening an oval hole near the bottom of the dome.

There was a roar from the spectators as the remnant of the Guard came charging through the hole, laying down a hail of pellets as they tried to get the Nistam and the court out and into the housecavern behind.

The Maka and the Tanak died and fell, fell and died, but the mantide rolled irresistibly over the Pliciks and the Guards.

Aleytys moved her shoulders and looked grim. Shadith felt sick, but she wasn't sorry she'd asked. Miowee was lying flat behind a pile of Na-priests, Kayataki hugged against her.

Rohant sat on his bench, Sassa perched uneasily beside him.

Kikun was leaning against a warbot leg, sunk in one of his enigmatic reveries, mostly not-there.

"Lee, how close are the flits?"

"Ten minutes at most."

"Don't you think we better get out of here?"

"No. There are enough people dying. I don't want to have to kill more."

"Yeh, well, nice. But tell you true, I'd rather them than me."

"Tigatri's on her way back. In a hurry. She'll lay down a stunfield, flatten everyone, we walk out taking our time."

"I thought you said an hour."

"It's almost that now, Shadow."

"Already?"

"Already. You were too tied up to notice." Aleytys patted her arm, chuckled. "Tell you something, my girl, this time I'm delivering you myself to University, make sure you get there."

"No, Lee. I don't think so. I think we've got unfinished business. The three of us." She straightened. "Rohant. Kikun. Come over here."