Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

SAVANT 4: Who are we?

SUBJECT: Omphalos.

SAVANT 4: How do you know that?

SUBJECT: I saw Omphalites at Koulsnakko’s, I see you.

The robes are not the same, the smell is the same.

SAVANT 4: Is that last metaphorical or physical?

SUBJECT: Both. Please yourself how you explain the metaphorical part. The physical? You and four others of your kind-they’re not here now-you walked past me at the Hole. I have an excellent memory for sensory data.

SAVANT 4: I didn’t see you.

SUBJECT: Considering the nature of my activities, that shouldn’t be surprising. We took care to keep out of the way.

SAVANT 4: You had no prior knowledge of our presence and our plans?

SUBJECT: No. We were there for Ginbiryol Seyirshi. SAVANT 4: I see. Your Toerfeles was quite possibly warned about us. How would you explain that? TECH 1 (interrupting): There was a very strong surge of emotion at that statement, Savant. You are giving him information he didn’t have before, information that excites and pleases him.

SAVANT 4: Yes, yes. Ciocan, answer the question. OBSERVER’S COMMENT: In the following answer, note how subject 7R takes extreme care with word choice. Observe the readings appended, see how he manages to keep his statements in the neutral realm while providing as little useful information as possible.

SUBJECT: I can’t know… uuuh… absolutely… but you can have my conjectures. Seyirshi attacked Voallts Korlatch viciously during the past year, we were bombed and murdered by his agents, forced into defending ourselves in any way we could. Necessarily this made us sensitive to all unexplained inquiries and intrusions. You made me watch the incident with

OssOran and Feyvorn, I saw the girl, I knew her. You got her from Voallts. Your agents must have left traces behind. Voallts always defends itself from any attack and the best defense involves knowing the attacker.

SAVANT 4 (to Tech I): Well?

TECH 1: He’s not lying. Maybe hedging a little, but not lying.

SAVANT 4: By what other means would your Toerfeles learn of us?

SUBJECT: Digby, Excavations Limited. It’s what we pay him for. Don’t bother asking me what his sources are. Digby presents results. How he got them is his business and he’s not about to disclose it to outsiders.

SAVANT 4: Well?

TECH I: Not lying. Being careful not to lie.

SAVANT 4: Do you, Voallts Security, your Toerfeles, or Digby have sources within Omphalos?

SUBJECT: No. Digby, I can’t know for sure, but I don’t think so. I’d like to say yes and see you sweat, but it wouldn’t be the truth.

TECH 1: Not lying, not hedging.

SAVANT 4: Good. Name and locate settlements of Dyslaera other than the Voallts Compound on Spotchals.

SUBJECT: No.

SAVANT 4: We will peel the boy inch by inch in front of you.

TECH 1: Reading steady. Truth. He will not speak to save subject 3Tj.

SAVANT 4: It’s futile, Ciocan… Such things are public knowledge. It may cost us say a year to find them, but we will.

SAVANT 4: Very well, that’s enough for today. Take him out. Put him on a three-day water fast. After that, we’ll see.

Rohant stretched out on his plank bed, closed his eyes. He’d tiptoed round the truth and got away with it. Shadow was out there somewhere. Her and Kikun. It had to be them.

Somehow. Miralys was well. The fear was gone, that sick emptiness that’d been rotting at his guts since he’d seen young Kalaksi in that cage. Miralys was well and tending to business.

And I’d better be, he thought. Shadow. I don’t have her gift, but maybe something like it…

He remembered what happened between her and him when she mindrode Sassa. Two-way flow there. Maybe… we never thought it was possible, the Tie, yes, the blood-bond with the tiebeast, but mindriding… I don’t know. Well, it’s time to start thinking the impossible. I certainly haven’t anything better to do these next few days.

Fishing In A Smaller Sea: Kikun And Autumn Rose Troll For The One Who Knows

Kikun came yawning onto the bridge and stood a moment blinking at the woman in the pilot’s chair. Autumn Rose was wearing dull brownish-purple trousers and an acid green tunic. And she’d dyed her hair an ashy brown, her skin olive-tan.

Clicking his tongue and shaking his head, he sauntered over to her. “Rose, you’re a sight for sore eyes and if they weren’t sore before they’d be now.”

She chuckled. “Camouflage, Kuna. You have yours, this’s mine.”

“Tlee!” Scratching at the skin folds under his chin, he frowned at the green and blue and brown and streaky white of the world taking up most of the screen. “So tell me about that.”

Rose grimaced, a twist of her wide mouth, a quick wrinkling of her long nose. “Well, I have an idea or two. Look.” She played a moment with the sensor pad, talking while she worked. “Barakaly came here about once a year.” She clicked her tongue. “The man was a cretin, you know. He had the best blocks available installed in his kephalos, then he goes and keeps his list of keys in this idiot antique desk in his quarters. Took me all of fifteen seconds to find the secret drawer he put his faith in, once I had time to look around the place. I mean, there it was…” she paused,, frowned at the screen where a map was developing in one cell, with images clustered about it of buildings and individuals and a sidebar slowly filling with data; she made some changes, then went on, “this old… um… THING just sitting there begging me to go poking about in it. I found porno flakes and a bunch of crecards in different names and… ah well, never mind… anyway, there was this notebook with all you need to know to uncrunch his codes, so I’ve been going through his personal records. Not a nice man, Barakaly Lak Dar. Chatty though, I mean looks to me like he got kicks from telling about the things he pulled, business and personal junk. Not a nice man. Oh, no.”

Kikun lay back in the chair and let his eyes droop nearly closed, absorbing what she was saying through skin as well as ears, tone of voice and behind-emotion, everything she was saying through intonation as well as words. Thinking was for him a physical process, sensual more than rational.

“You say it’s Omphalos responsible for this. Maybe yea, maybe nay, but one thing’s sure, Barakaly doesn’t know from Omphalos, not a word even in his twistiest files and if you’d ’ve seen what he’s got there, you’d know he must ’ve put EVERYthing in. He’s been to Arumda’m lots of times, though. Seems there’s a Black House there that provides victims to order,” she coughed, grimaced again. “All I can say is, it’s no wonder he was one of Ginny’s clients. Anyway, it’s a mess of a world. Every island its own nation and there are a furtzen lot of islands, haeds they’re called.” She grinned. “You’d think with that many heads around, they’d have a little wisdom thrust on them, but not so, my friend, not so. The place is full of tiny wars, whenever some local vaarlord gets an itch for someone else’s land, he whips up a war and tries to take it. It’s worst in the south, there’s more land there, more big islands, sub-continents I suppose you’d call them. Haemundas to the Rummers. Don’t look at me like that, Kuna. That’s what they say when they’re talking about each other-according to Barakaly, though I admit he’s not a source I’d trust about anything sensitive. We’ll just have to wait and see. Anyway, where was I? Ah, good thing that’s in the north.” She pointed to the city map. “The biggest city they have. Tos Tous. The Landing Field’s there and it’s a Freecity, lots of strangers coming in and out. Offworlders too, freetraders and types like Barakaly in for the… um… amenities. I’ve dug out the names of some contacts he had who might be useful. They set up his stays at the Black House and other little pleasures. Seems to me, those are the types who’d have the information we need to get at… well, call it Omphalos. What I think is, we go in, look over the ground, go after these contacts, take them, question them and…” She shrugged. “That’s as far as I can go now. What happens after that depends on what we find out. Probably we scat for home and Digby and Miralys. We’ll need a small army if Shadow and the others are here. If they aren’t, well, we better go add our ignorance to the rest and see what we can do about it.”