Jo Clayton: Shadow of the Warmaster

“I jerked my taps and went away fast, the corridor shutting down behind me, erasing my backtrail. I thought I got away clean. I collected my case and was offworld before Bolodo Security finished flushing the compound and turned their search on the ports. I dodged about for several months, shifting IDs until I was me again. There was no sign of interest in me before Aggerdorn, that was where I got passage here with Treviglio. I shouldn’t be surprised, though, should I. It isn’t that big a step to tie the agitator on Kavelda Styernna to Aslan and Aslan to me and given what happened on Spotchals, adding in Adelaris, well, there I was. Kinok and Kumari were right, Bolodo’s little sideline is nasty, dangerous and profitable; the net on Aslan’s shipment was close to a billion gelders and remember there’ve been two shipments a year for more than five decades.”

She opened her eyes, yawned. The storm was still yowling outside the deflectors, though the winds were dying down, the rain slackening. “You know the most frustrating thing? I was on Spotchals two months before Aslan’s shipment left Weersyll. Two damn months.” She glanced at the storm with impatience, all pleasure in it gone, sat up and ran her hands over her hair, pulling control like a coat around her. “You can follow that ship?”

“If we can set some ticks. We’ll know more about that shortly. Pels, get on to Kinok, have him start a run on Weersyll, then you get hold of some of your dubious friends, see what they can give you. If they need time, have them message you at our drop on Helvetia. Kumari, see if you can get through to ti Vnok; say we’ll make Helvetia three weeks on. If he wants to meet, have him leave time and place at the drop.” Quale got to his feet, stood back to let the others move past him. He glanced after them, turned to look down at Adelaar. “Helvetia first. We have to settle the escrow and register the services contract.” His mustache lifted in a smile reflected in his pale eyes. “Even Bolodo won’t mess with Helvetia.”

“They could wait beyond the Limit, jump us there.”

“ Slancy Orza has a trick or two. Hmm. Give you a few hours’ sleep and the world won’t be so grim.” He bent, reached under the table. “I’ll have a serviteur clear the table. Anything you’d like?”

“The storm to end.”

“Won’t be long now. Relax.”

She made an impatient gesture. “If your lander can’t work through this little disturbance, what good is it?”

“It’s being droned down, no use taking chances for a miserable half hour that we can make up with no trouble once we’re insplitted.” A brow lifted, another smile, then he too was gone.

She sat and watched the rain thrum down, watched it diminish abruptly to a trickle. The clouds raveled, paling, thinning; patches of sky appeared, vividly blue in contrast to the shadowed whites and pale grays of the vanishing clouds. Shafts of sunlight shot down, touching droplets of rain into blinding glitters; the greens outside the garden shimmered like polished jade. Quale read her too well, curse the man, her gloom dissipated with the storm. Her ambivalence remained. Action was on hold for the moment, once it began it’d go with a rush. Out of her control. Before, she’d been in charge, now he’d be. Quale.

Enigmatic man. She smiled, a wry tight thinning of her lips, as she remembered Lyggad stroking his pile of faxsheets, wrinkled atomy, big-eyed elf. The first part of his life Quale was a violent brute with a strong skilled body and enough intelligence, or maybe it was cunning laced with Luck, to acquire a ship and hold together a motley crew of scavs, a sleazy, crude scavenger whose idea of subtle attack was rip and run, then he’d tangled with the Hunter Aleytys and suddenly he was something more. A clever man, quiet, calm, cutting ties to his former… well, you couldn’t call them friends, say associates, pals, buddies, whatever. A man who kept clear of trouble. Lyggad said it was like Aleytys gave him a brain transplant. He giggled when he said it, but obviously more than half-believed it, Aleytys was part Vryhh and who knew what those types could do when they put their minds to it? He said some of Quale’s ex-buddies got nosy and demanded to know what happened, implying in forceful though limited language (that was Lyggad being prissy) that the woman had castrated him. They didn’t ask twice. In that, Quale hadn’t changed, he was fast and nasty when the occasion required. So Lyggad said.

SlancyOrza . Rummul empire trooper, Lyggad said, mostly shell and drives when Quale acquired it, a wreck flying on kicks and curses. The drives used to be huge clunkers that ate fuel like it was free. Quale yanked those and put in new drives; they were nothing standard according to the few folk who got a look at them and were willing to talk. Huge, sleek, powerful Slancy Orza (Lyggad’s voice went wistful, his tongue caressed the words), she can outrace a Sutt Aviso, sit down on a 3g world without bursting a seam and lift cargo nearly equal to her own weight.

She heard a quiet rumble, went down the stairs to stand, on the grass looking up at a small lander as it dropped toward the ground. The pad, she thought, Worm must be gone by now. She drew her hand down over her face, sighed, started for the house.

1. Three years std. earlier.

Aslan aici Adlaar daughter to Adelaar aici Arash riding to an unknown destination in the hold of a Salado transport.

Aslan muttered and blinked as she came out of a dragged sleep. She lifted her head, let it fall back as pain lanced from ear to ear. “Stinking… what now?”

Dim blue light. A cylinder. She was on a cot inside a tincan, cots spreading out on either side, above and below. She was catheterized but was not uncomfortable with it, the appliance was more resilient than most; there were restraints on her wrists and ankles, but they had sufficient play to let her sit up, even hang her legs over the cot’s edge. She was surprised that she wasn’t under full automatic care, her body processes reduced to a low hum. This waking restraint was wasteful and from what she knew of contract labor transports, unusual. She tried again and this time made it up. When her head stopped pounding, she looked around.

The other contractees… no, she thought, don’t funk the name… slaves, some of the slaves were stretched out sleeping, some were sitting up, staring morosely into the blue gloom, others were talking together, still others had books and were reading or earphones, listening to flake players. She hadn’t seen any of them before, Bolodo had kept her in solitary for months, probably so she’d have no chance to pass on anything about the Oligarchy and what they were doing to the Unntoualar; she had two coveralls, one clean each day, whatever flakes or books she asked for, but nothing from her own gear. She’d asked for that, but no one bothered to listen to her and she decided they’d ashed her things, just another paranoid precaution. Hmm. My own personal paranoid was too too right, mama’ll beat me over the head with that for the next hundred years. She clicked her tongue, smiled as she remembered her mother’s habitual t’k t’k that used to irritate her so much when she was a teener.

She went back to inspecting her companions. They were past adolescence, none of them old (making allowances for ananiles and mutational differences). All of them seemed to be sprouts on the cousin stem and there was a more intangible likeness-they were all professionals or artisans (no slogworkers in the mix) wearing the kind of gear experienced travelers chose, plenty of zippered pockets and easy to take care of. She looked down. She was back in her own tans, boots and all, the Ridaar unit in its belt case. Evidently they hadn’t ashed everything. Refusing to think about that, she slid off the cot, stretched, the tethers stretching with her, the catheter giving her no trouble.