Jo Clayton: Shadow of the Warmaster

We needed a com off, he needed a job. We took him on for one trip to see how he fit in. That was seven years ago.

Pels was digging around the thornbushes, pulling weeds, cleaning away sawdust and bits of paper and old leaves, loosening the earth about the roots. He keeps after me about the plants in the back yard, says I’m neglecting them, but those thornbushes could use a little neglect, they’re volunteers blown in by the hefty winds we get in the thaw storms. If I pampered them the way he wants they’d take over the yard, hey, they’d take over the world. He was about three-quarters finished with the thorns, baroom-brooming along, happy as he could get on a miserable one-g world.

Kumari was stretched out on a padded recliner, leafing through a book of poems composed in interlingue and interlarded with local idiom. She read snatches of them to me when she came across something she thought I ought to like. Mostly I ignored her, being too concentrated on gouge and wood to have much mind left for other things. All the same it was a pleasant noise. Shadith came about an hour after lunch…

Shadith brushed aside curls and chips of wood, swung onto the table; she set her hands on her thighs, waited until I finished the cut and ran my thumb along the line. “I need a sneaky lander,” she said. “Lend me Slider .”

“Hmm. See what you think of those harps. You like one, you can have it.”

She laughed at me. “Old Bear, put down your ax.” Hooking a foot around a table leg, she leaned back, ran her eyes over the three harps, chose one, not the best, I thought, but a start. With a treble grunt, she straightened, settled the harp against her shoulder and drew her fingers along the strings. “Interesting tuning. Well?”

“Why d’you want it?”

She wrinkled her nose at me, concentrated on her playing. Even I could tell the tone was dull; the song was dying on her. One dud. I think the wood was the problem there, no resonance to it. “Gray’s disappeared,” she said, “I’m off to see what happened.”

“I see. Want help?”

“This is a loser, Bear.” She did her lean again, switched harps, straightened. “Don’t think so.” It was my favorite she had this time, she smiled at the sound of it, played a snatch of some tune or other, moved on to another, then another. “My first chance to go off on my own,” she said after some minutes of noodling about. “In my own body. Got a tuning wrench around? I want to try something.”

“In the kit.” I lifted the tool kit over the harpframe I was working on and pushed it toward her. “Keep it if you want, easy enough for me to pick up another, you might be too busy where you’re going.” I watched her as she began retuning the harp. This was the first time I’d got a good look at that new body, couldn’t really count the web signal, the picture flats out here on Telffer, it’s a long way from anywhere. And the color bleeds, runs round the image like lectrify jelly. Lot of dumps and glitches around us. I found myself thinking, what’s a baby doing jumping into something hairy as that? Then I had to laugh; Shadow, little Shadith sitting inside that head, she was what? three, four thousand years older than me? Thing is, it’s hard to remember that looking at her. I was glad I’d had the nous to keep my mouth shut. I doubt having a body has changed her that much; she had a nasty turn of speech when she was annoyed.

She finished the tuning, began to play. Weird resonances. Tried to do things to my head. If I’d listened harder, I might’ve had visions, like some flaked out holyman. Hmm. Nice, once you got used to it. I went back to carving, the music made the cuts seem easier. Kumari closed her eyes, laid her book open facedown on her stomach. Pels stopped his humming but kept on with his digging. Remember his ears? They were up as high as they went, spread out and quivering, he had them turned toward the table.

“I like the tone of this ’n,” she said.

“That’s the one I thought came out best, but try the other.”

“Why not.”

She traded harps, played with the new one a little, set it aside. “You’re right, the second one’s by far the best.”

“You needn’t sound so surprised.”

“Poor old Bear, that rubbed at you, eh? Put your fur down, I didn’t mean it that way. The lander?”

I looked at Kumari. She managed to shrug without moving. Pels sat on his haunches and gave me a slitted look. He didn’t say anything, but I got the point. “Take it, Shadow. Anything happens, the cost comes out of my share of profits.”

Kumari has a sound she makes when she’s amused. It isn’t quite laughter, it’s a combined rattle and hiss like the noises a kettle makes when the water’s about to boil. “Damn right,” she said.

Pels grinned, baring a pair of fangs that almost made him uncute. “Yes,” he said, “if anything’s sure in this unsure universe, that is.” He voices his sibilants and shifts or drops his plosives; it’s those teeth, but I’m not going to try to reproduce how he sounds. “Shadow, be sure you get the Sikkul Paems to run you through the basic finger patterns. The Paems and me, we haven’t finished working on her, so the coding’s a nightmare. Don’t get yourself in a spot where you have to switch about fast.”

“Slow and sneaky. Gotcha.”

“Grr.” He went back to fiddling in the dirt.

She slid off the table. “This harp have any kind of case?”

“In the workshed, on the table by the lathe.”

“Thanks, Old Bear.”

“Call it a coming-out present.”

She laughed and went trotting to the workshed. Kumari raised a brow. “A bit young to be running loose, isn’t she?”

Crew knows my history, makes things easier when I get down and dark, so they knew what I was talking about when I said, “She’s older than me.”

“Coming-out.” Kumari pinched her nose. “Shame, Swar.”

Before I could answer that, the incom tinged and the housekeep came on. “One Adelaar aici Arash to see Swardheld Quale, business, no appointment.” The plate showed a small woman with a determined face while housekeep waited for me to decide what I wanted to do.

“Eh, I know her.” Shadith came to stand beside me, swinging the harp case. “When I was coming from the port, I saw her walking along Sterado Street. Two men were going after her. Locals, I think.”

“On the street? Not pros then.”

“Well, one of them had a yagamouche, so they were serious about it. I stunned ’em, took her to that ottotel on Fejimao, her business card’s in my flit if you want an extra check on her. Um, I got fots of the men, they’re in the flit’s memory. You want, you can have them.” She frowned. “If this is business coming up, won’t you be needing Slider ?”

“A deal’s a deal. The lander’s yours long as you need her. What we can’t finagle, we’ll fake. Mind her seeing you here?”

“’Course not. Why?”

“I’ve got to call Kinok about Slider , ve’ll want a look at you so ve knows who to let in. Best do that in the office. While we’re up there, you can give me the access code, I’ll have housekeep tap your flit. If there’s local talent after her,” I nodded at the plate, “I can use the fots to place them, might even recognize them myself, who knows. Better I have some idea what we’d be getting into before I close with her.”

I told the housekeep to let the woman in and take her to the living room, I wiped my hands off, brushed at the wood chips on my shirt and trousers and for maybe ten seconds thought about changing my clothes. Decided if she wanted a three piece suit she could buy one.

“Kumari, Pels, I’ll open the com, you keep an eye on what happens, give me a call if you see something I’m missing.”