Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

There were three conditions that had to be met before he could make his try.

He had to be out of his cell; only the kephalos could open that grill for him.

He had to have a means of overcoming his flesh guards, always two of them, one going before him, the other following.

He had to have a way of distracting the android guard, one android always, always the same one.

Leaving the cell was no problem. For one reason or another he was out nearly every day.

The guards weren’t a problem either. Thanks to Miji.

Miji pattered along an offshoot of the main corridor. There were cells on both sides. In a cubicle in the middle of that cellrank, a man.

Miji’s startle response alerted Rohant to the presence of the man; the speed with which curiosity replaced wariness suggested he posed no threat.

Miji pattered into the cubicle and began nosing at the man, poking and tugging at him with his agile, six-fingered hands, gaining confidence every moment as the man showed no response.

In his cell Rohant was sweating with the effort to stay calm. He could feel what Miji’s fingers felt, he got the textures of the cloth and the skin, the prickle of the fine hairs, the looseness of the muscle under the skin. He knew when Miji had worked his way up the man’s body to his arm.

There was something under the sleeve. A sheath. Leather, probably-because Miji nibbled at it. A metal rod in the sheath. Short, about the length of Rohant’s thumb, but thinner. It could be a stunrod. Rohant squeezed down his surge of excitement; it was disturbing Miji who backed off and was about to scuttle away.

Sweating, his face twisted with concentration, he coaxed the sakali back to the arm, got him to pop the snaps, take the rod from the sheath, and bring it away.

Again and again he had to convince Miji to bring him the rod; he caressed and cajoled the little sakali, kept him trotting along on his hind legs, the rod clutched to his chest.

After what seemed an eternity, Miji was crouching outside the grill, his bright black eyes sparkling with satisfaction.

Rohant knelt by the grill, reached between the bars and brought him into the cell, palming the rod at the same time, getting it into the front of his prison shirt. He sat with the sakali on his knee, scratching gently about the frill with the tip of his foreclaw. Miji closed his eyes and went limp, his tongue hanging out; he trilled with pleasure, a tiny bubbling whistle that was pure joy.

Later, when Miji was out and sleeping in his burrow, Rohant manage a brief look at his prize. It was indeed a stunrod-small, short range, but all he needed to take out the flesh guards. He opened a half-inch of the hem of his shirt, slid the rod into the opening, and went to work on figuring a way of distracting or disabling the android.

“I went,” she told Rohant when he came back. “I didn’t know what to expect. What I saw was odder than I expected, still… I don’t know.

“Digby was sitting in a pulochair inside an image bubble; he was a square brown man with black eyes, wide cheekbones, and a smile that could light up all of Spotch-Helspar. I liked him the minute I saw him. He had a good smell, well, you know what I mean. It was the same thing with that odd creature Frittagga Addams. Anyway, I let him take the language extract, then we talked. And he told me he already knew what part of the problem was. The Watchman program.

“‘You’re running it on full cycle, aren’t you.’

“‘Yes, that’s the way I was told to do it when I bought the androids.’

“‘Everyone is. The jacals love it that way.’

“‘What?’

“‘I suspect that’s what you’ve got raiding your stocks. Someone hired a jacal, probably to get the jinnkitt, I hear you’ve refused three separate offers for it.’

“‘Yes. We won’t deal with brokers and we won’t sell where we don’t trust.’

“‘Right. You know the reason why Watchman androids are sold in threes?’

It was early days for Voallts Korlach. They’d just opened the compound in Spotch-Helspar, Miralys was pregnant with Lissorn and they had a single Capture ship out bringing in stock for their cages. Rohant was their sole Capture Chief and his cousin Napos ran the ship. In addition to the Dyslaerors they had four Grydeggin trackers in their capture team, a University-trained Katsitoi triad acting as a communal xenobiologist and two Trumpet Viner Cousins as ecologists, setting the pattern for mixed crews that Voallts Korlach continued till the present day.

A series of thefts had been giving Miralys fits. Despite sentries and a triad of watchman androids, someone had been getting to the stock, carrying off small but valuable birds, beasts, reptiles. The thief had twice got close to their most valuable beast, a pure white Mersallan jinnkitt with a base worth of fifty thousand Helvetian gelders, its actual price probably double that. Miralys had already turned down two bidders, because she didn’t like the way they smelled. A third had used a broker; she sent the broker away without bothering to listen to his offer. It was something she and Rohant had agreed on from the beginning. They would not sell so much as a feather through brokers, the buyers had to represent themselves. They wanted to know where their stock was going and what was going to happen to it.

“I was wondering what to do next,” she told Rohant when he got back, “when Zimaryn brought in this card, it made me laugh, there was this mini-holoa up in the left corner, a shovel dancing. Silly thing. Of course I’d heard of Digby and Excavations Ltd. Is there anyone on Spotchals who hasn’t? I wasn’t sure what to think of him and his business and most of all his prices.

“The… well… the exceedingly ambiguous being who sent the card in, I’ll say she for convenience’s sake, was a blonde beauty, I’m not that good at judging the attractions of outsiders, but it seemed to me she was rather past her prime. She sat in the pulochair, crossed her legs and smiled at me, and said her name was Frittagga Addams.

“I tapped my claw on the card and gave her the hoteye.

“‘Why?’ I said.

“‘Five thefts in the past three months. Police nowhere, though they’re trying. Here on Spotchals the P-T-B like to encourage young, healthy, expanding enterprises.’

“‘Young. So right,’ I said. ‘We can’t possibly afford Digby’s fees, even if they’re only half what they’re rumored to be.’

“‘Digby is willing to take his fee in services rather than gelders.’

“‘Specify.’

“‘Digby is a man with a voracious hunger for knowledge. Dyslaera are very little known outside of Dysstrael. He wishes to learn the language and history of your people. Nothing sacred or private, just whatever is public knowledge, what you teach your children. If you will provide a language extract and would agree to come and talk with him once a week for the next year, he’ll consider that sufficient fee for his services.’

“‘Which are?’

“‘He will discover the thief, the means by which the thefts are accomplished and, if possible, recover the stolen stock. He can’t guarantee this last, because he doesn’t know the purpose of the thefts.’

“‘I understand,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to consult the Family first.’

“‘Do that, then come and speak with him. You’ll see.’

“‘Wouldn’t it be better for him to come here so he can see the place?’

“‘Not possible. Come. You’ll see.’

“And then she left.”

“I quoted the brochure to him,” she told Rohant. “I was irritated; he was belaboring the obvious so I might as well respond in kind: ‘To insure flexibility of response and reaction speed in a casing of reasonable size, memory capacity is limited. The intake must be sorted and downloaded every three hours; the three androids must download in staggered series so that at least one is at full efficiency at the moment when one is taken out of circuit. What’s wrong with that?’ I said, ‘It only takes a minute.’