Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

“Merm bed?”

Cinnal Samineh wrinkled her nose. “I can’t talk about that.”

“Can anyone?”

“Geri, maybe; I’ll ask her.”

“Thanks. How much water could this… um… plant produce in a day?”

“Enough for all of us. We had to be careful of course, and we used seawater for things we use freshwater for these days.”

“Interesting. You said I might be able to visit a school?”

“I talked to my family’s Ommar, she said fine. Schooling is family business, nothing to do with the Council. It’s quite a walk from here. We could take it easy, or maybe I could whistle up a shell.”

“Why not? It’s a lovely day for a boat ride.”

That night Aslan worked until long after midnight, sketching out the distortions and outright falsities she wanted to incorporate indetectably into her data files; when she was too tired to make sense of the numbers and symbols, she tore the pages into small bits and burned them. When she finally slept, she slipped in and out of nightmare, dreams where she was endlessly running, unable to reach a shapeless goal that seemed to represent safety; it hovered continually just in front of her, kept vanishing on her and reappearing a little farther on. Other times she was under something dark and heavy that came rushing down at her. That was a fast dream. It recurred several times and each time she managed to wake up just before the thing crushed her; she lay bathed in sweat, her heart pounding, her head throbbing, the half-healed bruises and cuts adding their own dull misery to a night that was beginning to seem endless.

“Rosepearls.” Gerilli Persij dipped her hand into a soft pouch and pulled out half a dozen rounds. She tilted her palm and let them trickle onto the square of black suede. The smallest was about the size of a small pea; it was a pale pinkish cream. The others went from cream to deep rose, from cherrypit to plum-sized. They shared a fine luster with a glow that seemed to reach down and down, drawing the eye after it. Gerilli Persij took a mid-sized pearl between thumb and forefinger, held it out to Aslan. “Close your hand around it for a moment, then smell your skin.”

The pearl warmed quickly. Aslan opened her hand, sniffed at her palm. There was a delicate floral fragrance, very pleasant though nothing startling. Another moment, though, and she noticed something odd happening to her. She felt tension dropping from her, her body was vibrating with fine-tuned energy, yet she felt no need to move or speak. That rang an alarm in her mind, a distant flutter that immediately started fading, but not quite fast enough. Chewing on her lip, amazed at how difficult it was, she set the pearl on the suede.

Gerilli Persij smiled and began putting the rosepearls back in the pouch. “One like that probably bought you,” she said. “Depending on how expensive you were.”

“And they come from merms?”

“I can say that, yes.”

“And a Dalliss is the only one who can locate and handle merms?”

“Yes.” Her mouth twisted into a wry self-mocking smile. “I wouldn’t say that if Tra Yarta didn’t already know it.”

“I see. That’s what you meant when you said you were too valuable to the Imperator to be slaughtered at a whim.”

“That’s what I meant.” She shrugged. “If we don’t push it too hard.”

“That malignancy in orbit… if there was just some way we could get rid of it…”

“We?”

“From what you said, I’m stuck here as long as it’s up there.”

Gerilli Persij gazed at her a long moment, then she shut the pearls into a small lockbox and got to her feet. “You said you’re a good swimmer.”

“I spent five years on Vandavrem, my first field assignment after I was accepted in the graduate program on University. It was a waterworld, almost no land. There was a very strange culture of intelligent bubble nesters… Never mind, it would take too long to explain, but yes, I got to be very adept in the water.”

“Would you care to visit the yoss forest?”

“Yes. Of course. Do you freedive or use airtanks?”

“Depends on how deep we’re going and what kind of work’s involved. I think tanks for this expedition.”

“Right. Lead me to them.”

Again Aslan worked until her mind was numb, slept badly and woke with despair and fear a sickness in her belly. It was hard to get up, to get on with living, but she’d done all she could in the time given her. The airship was coming for her shortly after noon and in a few hours she’d be back in the Palace pen, a slave again, with all that meant. She comforted herself with the thought that the sooner she was gone from the Persij-Samineh Farm, the sooner Tra Yarta’s attention would be taken off them.

They threw a feast for her, danced the sea-dances for her, tumbled and juggled and at the end of the little jubilation, a woman with a husky voice filled with the pain and joy of a fully lived life sang a song that the Farmers listened to with a verve that seemed more than it was worth. Sly eyes watched Aslan, half-smiles teased at her, said to her we know we know, it’s a bit of a risk, but who can always live safely?

The woman’s hair was black and long, shiny and sleek as a tar slick. She stood on a wooden dais, flute player on one side, a fiddler on the other and drummer at her feet.

One a two a moon rising high

Dream and Illusion sharing the sky

Three a four a stone and a bone

What does the stone say, my oh my

What does the bone say, by an by

Moonlight’s for love

For dreams never spoken of

Dreams that won’t die

Five six seven

What do you leave in

When you’re singing just a little lie

Sweet lie, silly lie, pass on by

Eight and nine

Look for the sign

Ten eleven

Fall from heaven

All those devils dark and sly

Riding the shoulders of

You and I

High be low and low be high

Twelve a thirteen

What does it mean

Bone come walking shimble shamble

Place your bets and let the wheel spin

All the little angels grin and gambol

Tip a toe tap a toe atop a little pin

Stone say watch it, round they come again

The angels are dancing wild and tame

Tap a toe tip a toe atop a little pin

Hey bone, ho bone want a little game

Bound for heaven? Never try it

That’s a place they let too many in

Fourteen fifteen

What does it mean

All the little angels wild and free

Asquat around a gamble stone

Playing for we

Sixteen seventeen

What’s your fancy?

Nothing chancy

Let the wheel spin

Eighteen nineteen

What does it mean

Moonlight’s for love

For dreams never spoken of

Dreams that won’t die

Twenty a score, not no more

What’s a number for

Start the game again

Aslan joined in the storm of applause, appreciating the skill of the singer as she turned what seemed to be a minor little counting poem into something daring and portentous. The performance was safe in the Ridaar unit and she could study it in more depth later-if she decided she could trust the computers at her work station and if she wanted the responsibility. It wasn’t all that difficult to understand the overall message of the song; even this stranger could hear the call for a continued resistance to Huvved rule, but there were some trigger words and images that drew a response which seemed disproportionate to their content. There was something going on here, something more dangerous than what Gerilli Persij had called talking a good fight. Aslan kept an open, appreciative smile on her face as the woman stepped down and another singer took her place, a man this time.