Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

Alone except for the pilot and his co, Aslan watched the grasslands sliding beneath her, the silvery green-brown grass blowing in the wind that was pushing the ship along and making it shudder now and then. I could like this world, she thought, these people. Well, not the Huvved. Hmm. It’s worth studying… wonder who’d apply and who’d get the grant? Aaron? Could be. He must be nearly finished with the Darra Saseru, seeing that they’re just about finished killing each other off. Or maybe T’Kraaketkx Tk. I wonder what the Hordar would make of him? Hmm. Are they shapephobic? Or is that a Huvved trait? All the slaves brought in with me were from the cousin races, only slight variations from the two types living here. But that was just one shipment. Hmm. If I were the Imperator and reasonably sane, the techs I’d import would be so different from the locals that there’d be no place at all for them to hide. She yawned, settled back in the chair and dropped into a doze.

Aslan dropped her gear on a newly replaced grass mat. “Hey everyone, I’m back. Parnalee? Churri? Anyone here?”

“One sec, Lan. Be right out.”

Aslan raised her brows, startled. “Xalloor?”

“Uh-huh.” The dancer slammed the door to Parnalee’s bedroom and threw herself down on a couch. “Trying to turn me into a blisterin nurse, tchah!” She wrinkled her nose. “I suppose it’s better than being drafted as a whore for those mignish guards.”

“What?”

“Drooling ol’ dreep.”

Aslan dropped onto the couch. “Who?”

“Him.” Xalloor jerked a thumb at a window that looked out on the Great Tower. “Him with his bony ass planted on this world.”

“What happened?”

“Dumb. Me.” Xalloor banged a fist against her chest. One of her sudden brilliant grins lit up her tired face. “Nah, not so bad as that. Stupid Madoor, wouldn’t let me see the client. I always do that so I know what the git wants. I was flying blind, hmp, went to the trouble to snatch me, didn’t they? I figure here he is, he owns the whole stinking world, he must’ve paid one tart’rish price for me, so I go all out and give him my most marvelous dance. I told you about it, the Lightsailor piece.” Her shoulders jerked with her short barking laugh.

“So?”

“Turns out his idea of art rises maybe to paper dollies.” Another abrupt laugh. “Trouble is the Lightsailor thing’s pretty abstract. I lost him about five minutes into it. Been anything less, I’d ’ve seen that and played to him, but that piece is a chunk of my heartsoul and I wasn’t noticing anything. Until the finish. There was a very long loud silence.” She shrugged. “Too bad. Oh well, what goes around, comes around.”

Aslan caught her hand, held it a moment. Then she sighed and shook her head. “I go away four days…”

Xalloor caught hold of her chin, tilted her face to the light. “You get crosswise with someone?”

“My escort switched into monster max when he thought I was being uppity.”

“You and Parnalee.”

“What happened?”

“I never got it straight, all I know is from his mumbles when I was washing the blood off. Lessoning, he said, at least that’s what I thought it was, whoever worked him over got in some good licks at his face and he wasn’t talking so clear. Place. He say that a lot. His place. He kept going on about knowing his place all right and teaching some tofty prick his. I figure one of these snotheads he was catering for thought he was getting above himself. Like you say, uppity. One of the guards hauled me out of the pen and told me to take care of him. He was bleeding all over the mat nearest the door, you maybe noticed one of them’s new. Someone gave him one tart’rish going over, his back was hamburger. A local medic shot him with some stuff and gave me some goo to rub on the bruises, That was late last night. He’s still sleeping. So you found out yet what they want a … that thing you said… what they want you for?”

“They’ve got me studying the Hordar.”

“Why?”

“Trouble. They want us, Parnalee and me, to poke around and figure out how to calm things down without killing everybody.”

“I can see why, these mignish nothi would starve to death if they killed off the Hordar.”

“How is he? Really.”

“He’s going to know it when he moves for at least a month, but he’s a chunk of ax jerky, it won’t kill him. If I know men, he’s going to bitch a lot, but you just ignore it.”

“What about the Bard? Anything happen to him?”

“Not yet and maybe never, what I’ve picked up, you don’t mess with poets round here.”

“I see. Xalloor, you know anything about computers?”

“Deary dai, do I know about computers? Do you know about dancers these days? I guess not, stuck out in the boondocks with those primi types. It’s a hard world out there, Lan, and competition’s something fierce. Unless you’ve got an edge. I have this marvelous bitty Makerdac, no bigger’n my fist with a fanscreen that can holo full-size figures and make like a fiftypiecer, band you know. Do all my choreographing on it, plus my accounts and you name it. I swear, Lan, plug it into a sytha outlet and it’d fry you eggs for breakfast.”

“Right. I’ll see if I can work it so you come over here and help me with my data. If you’re willing?”

“Read dy da, willing!”

“Pretty dull stuff.”

“This mome, dull sounds marrrvelous.”

“Come take a walk with me.” Aslan got to her feet, smoothed her hands down her sides. “I’ve been sitting all afternoon and I need to get the knots out.”

“Ah hah.” That high wattage grin flashed again, then her narrow face was primly serious.

They strolled along a shady path that more or less paralleled the section of creek that ran through the enclosure. “… so we figured Bolodo would show up again in about six months standard and we’ve been looking about for ways to take the transport and run for civilization. Maybe not this time, but the next for sure.”

Xalloor flicked a woven grass fan back and forth in the futile hope that moving air would be marginally less oppressive. “I heard talk in the pen, a snatch here, another there. You’re not the only ones. So what happened? It’s obvious you aren’t all that hipped on the idea.”

“I’ve been thinking about it and trying to plan something from the minute I put foot to ground and saw the transport was the only insplitter around.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“I know. I just wanted you to…” Aslan pushed sweaty hair back from her face. “One of the people at the Sea Farm, she told me it’d happened before. Slaves took the transport, got it flying.” She put her hand on Xalloor’s arm, stopped her. “You hear anything about what’s up there? Hanging over us?”

“Huh?”

“Ever seen one of those battleships they call Warmasters?”

“Shee-it. Yeh, a client once took me through one, it was defanged though. You telling me…”

“Yeh.”

“It got the transport.”

“Fffft!”

“Think Parnalee knows?”

“Haven’t told him.”

“Maybe I should change my mind about moving over.”

“Nice having someone to talk to.”

“There is that.”

They started walking again. After several minutes, Aslan said, “I don’t like helping Tra Yarta put the boot to the Hordar.”

“Nothing much you can do about it and keep your own skin whole.”

“I can um put a twist on what I tell him.”

“Get yourself whomped some more. Maybe turned into fish bait.”

“I’ve already started. You might not want to be involved.”