Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

Allina continued healthy.

Tinoopa ran the House with unobtrusive efficiency, making points, as she’d say, with every easy day.

Pirs lost his strained look. With a facility that amounted to a Talent, he forgot old terrors and went back to his books and the business of running the Kuyyot.

Shadith’s restlessness increased. She got Pirs to let her look over his histories and the atlas he kept on his desk. Whenever the Matja gave her some free time, she was in the study, making notes, trying to work out a way of reaching Nirtajai without getting herself killed.

And she began looking about for allies.

The chal wouldn’t run with her, she knew that. She didn’t bother thinking about them.

Vuodee and Vassika had settled in and started courting almost immediately; now they were promised, with weddings due before the month was out. They were full of plans and elated because their contracts were to be voided as soon as they took the chal-oath to the Arring and the Matja.

Tictoc, Evalee, and Dorrit had been having a grand time flirting and generally making mischief among the men, but they too were beginning to settle down. According to Tinoopa, the betting was Evalee would be promised before Summerhighday and the other two soon after.

Lyousa va Vogl was blissful with the opportunities offered by the weaving shed. Nunnikura. Weavemistress had recognized her gifts and left her free to improvise. It would take a planet wrecker to blast her loose.

Jassy and Eeda had a widening circle of friends; they were hard workers, cheerful and outgoing. Contract levies were all they knew and they were content to have it so. Jassy was a practiced storyteller and she had an endless supply of strange, wonderful tales to liven meals and sit over brushtea with; in a world where books were scarce and most entertainment homemade, she was a treasure.

Beba Mahl had settled into embroidery. She’d bargained for night work and gotten it. She had a room of her own and almost no contact with the rest of the Kuysstead. She could complete her contract and move on. No one would miss her and she would forget them as soon as she joined a new levy.

Ekkurekeh and Yerryayin were hard workers and unambitious. For reasons they never spoke of, they’d adopted the Levy system as home, did what they were told and dropped into Kuysstead life without making a ripple.

The cousin convicts Bertem, Luacha, and Sabato were bored and unhappy here, they loathed the work in the weaving sheds and wriggled out of it whenever they could. The problem was, like Tinoopa, they were city-bred; the Brush scared them, they couldn’t ride and didn’t want to learn. They liked their comforts, baths and beer and warm beds with friendly company. Shadith considered them, shook her head. No. Better go alone than chance the miseries that trio of sybarites would bring with them.

The Jinasu (Ommla, Jhapuki, Fraji and Rafiki) spent their days with the beasts and their nights with the herders and were as likely as the young ones to take the chal-oath when their term was up, though not because they wed any of the locals. They’d branched far enough from the other Cousin races to make children unlikely and any that appeared sterile. They were candid about that early on and it made life much easier for them since they’d ceased to be a threat to local women. They liked this world and would do nothing to injure their status here.

Zhya Arru spent long lazy days tending the livestock of the Kuysstead; she liked beasts and loathed unexpected changes. Though she didn’t work at it, she too had her admirers and would probably wed one of them and take the chat-oath before the end of summer-as long as it was clearly understood she wasn’t about to do any housework or other boring tasks.

Anitra vanished the third night after their arrival. It was assumed she’d gone to the Brush. Pirs sent out trackers, but they found no trace of her.

Tsipor pa Prool stayed a month longer than Anitra, then she vanished, too. She was a silent women, secretive and strange. No one bothered going after her. In fact, there was a collective sigh of relief when she was gone.

In her room at night Shadith paced from window to door to wall and back again, raging at her helplessness. It seemed absurd that she couldn’t get away from here. There were no bars to hold her, no walls she couldn’t climb. Only that two thousand kays of wilderness.

That was enough right now… more than enough.

Prisoner 3: Ginny Slips His Shackles And Goes Hunting A Shadow

The minute Ginbiryol Seyirshi woke, he knew he’d been moved. They’d drugged him and shifted him from his cell on the planet to a cell on a ship.

He sat up slowly, looked around. Four walls and a floor, empty. Toeup furnishings unsprung except for the cot he’d waked on. Wallslot for food delivery. He placed his hands on his knees, dropped his gaze to the floor, and brooded.

The cell was a twin of the holding cells on his own ship and for a moment he wondered if Omphalos was playing games with his head, sending him out on a vessel they said was destroyed.

No. The reasons he’d conjured for believing them were valid; this was a case of form following function. He suppressed his surge of hope, got laboriously to his feet, and began exploring the resources of the cell.

Betalli smoothed gloved fingers over the back of a gloved hand, watched the monitor a moment longer, then touched it off and got to his feet. Ignoring the side glances of crewmen in dull gray shipsuits and mirror visors, he left the bridge and dropped to the living quarters. He touched the announcer on the Savant Quatorze’s cabin and waited.

And waited.

He folded his arms and prepared to outlast the Savant’s annoyance. This was his nominal superior, but the man had to be aware of the web of support Betalli had throughout the Powers of Omphalos. He’d listen. He wouldn’t do anything, but at least he’d listen.

The announcer chimed, the door slid back, Betalli went in.

His mouth tightened when he saw the Savant was wearing his robe, cowl, and gloves. This was supposed to be a SECURE mission, all ties to the Source carefully erased. This fool… He bowed, waited to be offered a seat.

It was another lengthy wait. The Savant was making sure Betalli knew who ordered whom. Finally a gloved hand lifted, pointed at a chair.

Betalli sat, waited.

“You wanted?”

“Seyirshi is awake.”

“So. It’s time, isn’t it?”

“You don’t understand him. I do. He’s a dangerous man, most dangerous when he looks most helpless.”

“That again.”

“I cannot guarantee to control him if you let him out of the holding cell. Leave him in there until we reach Bol Mutiar.”

“You made that argument to the Mimishay Council. They didn’t buy it, why do you expect me to? I was instructed to start the man working once we were in the insplit. I am going to follow instructions. If you’re so worried, come up with something specific you want done to tighten security. Otherwise stop carping and do your job.”

Betalli got to his feet, bowed, and left.

He was for Omphalos. It was the center of his life, his reason for existing. He believed passionately in what Omphalos stood for, in rule of the masses by a benevolent elite. He believed that ordinary people were incapable of regulating themselves and organizing their own lives. They needed direction, guidance, gentle coercion for their own good. Sometimes not so gentle, if they were resolutely wrongheaded.

He was honored by the Powers of Omphalos and honored them, but at times it seemed to him the lesser brethren had so little grasp of the Soul of Omphalos that they were scarcely better than the sheep they were being bred to rule. He’d met types like Quatorze before, all too often he’d brushed against them in his labors outside the comfortable ambiance of the Home Foci. He worked alone, a Focus in himself, no Brothers for him. The more conventional Brothers resented his self-sufficiency because it stood as a measure of their own limits.