Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

He touched his fingertips a moment on the gray-sprinkled fur between his uncle’s ears, then he straightened, crossed to Azram and Kinefray. “How you two doing?”

Kinefray scratched at the stubble on his chin. “I’m full of holes and Azri’s bored to stone.” He pointed with his mouth at Tolmant. “What’s…”

Nezrakan started to answer, was interrupted by a shriek of rage. He wheeled, started running.

Tejnor screamed again, swung round and started back into the tunnel.

Cables whipped from the wall, caught him by the legs and torso and slammed him against the ceramic.

An augmented voice boomed from one of the towers: “Don’t move, you.” A pellet ricocheted from the concrete near Nezrakan’s foot. “Next one moves an ear’ll get it shot off.”

One of the novice wards who escorted them about came from the tunnel, still trying to pull his robe to some kind of order. Tejnor had clawed him good when he broke loose after he’d gotten a look at Tolmant. He undid the belt to his robe, straightened it out, slapped it a few times against the concrete. The belt was six leather straps, all of them studded with burrs of steel.

He proceeded to beat the shit out of Tejnor.

“Interesting. Close call there. If the ward had kept up the whipping about two seconds more, they’d have been on him, shot or not.” Savant 2 sniffed. “You ever smell one of them when he’s angry or frightened? B’sheeeh!”

Savant 1 sent the cursor to the opening sequences, began replaying the events. “There’s that reflex again: you hit my kin, you hit me. If we can isolate and do the right alterations on the triggers, we just might be able to convert that loyalty to us…”

Shadith In Shadows 2

The shed door opened.

Light blew in, cold blue-white light that broke the murky twilight inside, wiped it out, making everything clear, pristine. It even seemed to submerge the smells of sweat and stale urine issuing from the women.

Eyes tearing at the sudden brightness, Kizra followed close behind Tinoopa as the big woman marched out, then scurried around and walked beside her, glancing repeatedly and surreptitiously up at her.

Like all the women, Kizra included, Tinoopa wore a grubby gray coverall. It didn’t flatter her wide-shouldered, big-hipped body. She had beautiful skin, soft and smooth, a dark amber; her black hair was thick and coarse; she wore it in heavy braids wound about her head. She had a handsome strong face, bold cheekbones and a decided chin, heavy dark brows over eyes that Kizra had seen friendly and laughing. They went stony when the door opened. Kizra found herself believing that this was not only the motherly creature who’d tended her, but a practiced and successful predator.

The women were herded along an alley between massive stone and timber buildings and into a large pen where a number of other women were already waiting, about a hundred of them.

She stayed close to Tinoopa, clinging to her as the only certainty in a world that kept dissolving on her. She tried to be casual about it. The depth of her need frightened her. She couldn’t give in to it. That was another thing that came popping out of what she couldn’t remember; there was something inside her that said however frightened you are, however needy, hide it. Don’t let THEM see you whimper.

The beaten dirt floor was packed hard as rock by generations of feet… how many labor cadres had walked through here to what end? The walls were three meters tall, made of planks like the walls of the but with cracks and knotholes and warped places; the wind came through in much the same way. No color anywhere, nothing but gray. The unpainted wood was weathered to a soft dull gray. The fine clay soil was a grayish tan. The women were all in gray. And fair, with light-colored hair from ash blonde to dirt brown. All but one.

That one had hair so furiously red it seemed to pull in the meager sunlight and, burn with it. Red hair… Kizra tried to see her face, but the woman had her back turned… red hair… red… She looked away, angry and disturbed because there were things in her head she couldn’t get at…

There were other, more obvious problems about the look of the women in here. She frowned at her hands. Brown hands, darker than the dirt she was standing on. Dark as Tinoopa. She looked from them to the pale pink women all around her-and was suddenly afraid.

A walkway with a three-bar railing ran along the top of the west wall with doors opening onto it from the building behind. A man came from one of those doors. He stood looking down at them a moment, then away over their heads, his nostrils flaring. The wind blew his hair sideways, long hair, straight and fine, so blond it was almost white. He wore black wool and black leather and carried a heavy pellet rifle cradled in the crook of his arm.

He shifted the rifle, banged the butt against the top rail and began talking, raising his voice so he could be heard above the whine of the wind. ”Irrkuyon of the Families of Aghirnamirr will be coming here to look at you. They will select from you.” He fumbled at his belt, held up a short metal rod.

The name of it popped into Kizra’s head: laser marker. Language. I’ve forgotten everything else, why do I remember words?

He thumbed it on, moved it about; a round red circle flicked from woman to woman. “When you are chosen thus,” he dropped the marker, touched a woman’s arm with the dot, “move here.” The dot swept to the door they’d come through. “When the door opens, go out. A guard will take you to the holding room.”

He went away again.

A few minutes later a woman came out the same door. She was tall and lean with prominent cheekbones and a large mouth. Her hair was drawn tightly back from her face and covered by a wide band of black cloth; the little that was visible was as pale as the man’s. Her brows were almost white and her skin was colorless. She wore a heavy gray jacket fitted close to her body and a long, full gray skirt. She was visibly pregnant, five months or six, and her face was pinched, stern. Her hands were bare, large hands, strong hands. She gripped the rail tensely as her light eyes moved over the women in the pen.

Kizra read her anger and her dislike for this business, felt also the grinding weariness that she was struggling against. After a minute she realized what she was doing and was startled by it. A Talent? she thought. Yes. Is that why…

The man returned, stood beside the woman. He gave her the marker and waited.

Her mouth tightened, but she said nothing. She lifted the rod, flicked it on.

The red dot landed on Tinoopa’s arm.

For a moment Tinoopa didn’t move. The man stirred impatiently, scowled at her. Tinoopa sighed, patted Kizra’s shoulder and walked toward the door, her head high, her shoulders straight, light as a dancer despite her size.

Kizra folded her arms across her breasts, trying to hug reality to her as she felt it start to trickle away.

Then the red dot landed on her arm, breaking over a crease in her sleeve. With a relief that nearly turned her legs to jelly, she hurried after Tinoopa.

The big woman grinned, held out her hand as Kizra came into the waiting room. “Thought so. Anyone that’d pick me, she’d pick you. Noticed the rest, huh? They pretty much of a type, yes? Easy to figure the sort of nakaweeks settled this world, huh. Minute I saw ol’ whitehair up there I had me a baaad feeling, maybe Shimmaroh’s jail would’ve been better. A weel a weel, there’s no going back.”

When the Irrkuy woman had her quota, a set of guards herded the chosen women from the holding-room into a dusty mudbrick courtyard with a scant layer of gravel over brittle hardpan. White dust stirred and fell back with each twist of the sluggish breeze and filmed every surface in the place. Near the massive gate there were three vehicles parked in echelon-two landrovers and a huge boxtruck. The rovers were heavily armored and one was top-heavy with what amounted to a gun-station on its roof. All three had pneumatic tires made from some polymer that had come out a mottled purple fortunately grayed down by the omnipresent dust.