Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

The door opened. He didn’t bother turning, he thought it was the steward coming back.

“Ukomayile, listen.”

Ukomayile’s hand jerked, the tool cut a crease in the gold. Interlingue. He turned slowly.

A man stood in the doorway, tall, tired face, mussed black hair, a dark gray shipsuit. How many years since he’d seen a clutch of zippers like that, pockets on pockets on an easy loose-fitting overall. The man wearing the shipsuit wasn’t anyone he knew. He watched in dull wonder as the stranger pulled the door shut. “Tikkan Ekital sent me.” More interlingue, wonderful how fast it came back to him. “They want you back. You want out?”

Ukomayile sat without moving; it was a while before he took in what the man was saying. “Yes,” he said finally. “A moment.” He slipped the loose emeralds into their carrycase, snapped it shut and slid it into a large leather bag. He folded the chain and the wristlets into the linen workcloth and tucked the roll into the bag beside the stones, drew the strings tight and looped them over his wrist. With the same quick neat movements he cleaned out the safe and gathered up his leather case. “All right. We can go. What do you want me to do?”

The man chuckled. “Right. Just follow me, we’re heading for the roof.”

Place: Comweb TRANSFER STATION in the UYDAGIN mountains that run west of Gilisim Gillin.

Headprices: Hanu: 900 gelders; Posa Ala: 3000 gelders; Otsut: 2500 gelders.

Hanu scowled, cleared the program, unclipped the powerpack. “Otsa, come over here, will you?” He spun the flies, slipped off the cover and began pulling cassettes and program boards, lining these up so the Froska could take a look at them.

Otsut yanked on the chain clamped around her neck and pulled it along the overhead slide until she could reach Hanu’s side. She moved the tip of a long thin finger across the first board, made a tutting sound. “Burnout, sabotage perhaps, perhaps faulty manufacture.” She had a high sweet voice like the chirping of a cicada; soft greenish skin fell in graceful folds between her arms and body; her eyes were a darker green, huge sad eyes. She was nocturnal, totally adapted to a darkness broken only by the fluctuating polarized light of a huge moon that was more like a companion world than a satellite. The light in the room was painful to her, but she endured the small torment because she must, endured it in silence because she was Froskin and they took pride in their stoicism. She was the key to the team; she could generate a weak current in her body and had been surgically altered so she could test-read flakes and boards without exterior, nonorganic aids. Hanu and Posa Ala didn’t mind being confined to nightwork, it left them more on their own, less contact with their masters; neither of them found it easy to accept being a slave, they did what they could to minimize the reminders, though the pen where they were caged when not working and the collars they wore at all times, the chains that tethered them when they were doing their analyses and repairs would not let them forget their status or settle too complacently into their new lives. Otsut worked quickly along the line, found three substandard boards and a totally unusable one, one cassette was useless and several of the others were flawed. “This is a larger degree of incapacity than we have found before, Anyo. Is it the transfer unit doing it?”

“There’s no sign of surges, no charring or smell or anything similar. Besides, aren’t these new units?”

“Most are new,” she chirped, “if the manifest is correct; I think it is not exactly correct, I think the supplier is enhancing his profit at the expense of quality.”

Hanu looked around. Posa Ala was at his post across the room and their guard was sitting in a chair with his feet up, eyes closed, mouth working as he chewed at green fyon, a local narcotic. “The more things change,” he said.

She let greenish parchment lids drop over her eyes. Such corruption was painful to her. The neckchain clinked softly as she shuddered, then she put off her distress. “Are there sufficient spare boards to finish the repairs?”

“Any of those near enough to standard for Posa to do some surgery on?”

She touched them again, picked a board up, played her fingers across it. “This one.” She set it down, apart from the rest. “The others, no. The software? Too much damage. You’ll have to replace every cassette.”

“Well, we can fix this unit, but that’s it for tonight. Have to put in a rec, I suppose and wait for supplies.” Hanu patted a yawn, got to his feet. “Eh, Posa, how you doing?”

“About the same as you from the look of it.”

“Why don’t you take a break and come over here? Otsa has a board for you to operate on.”

“That’s a break?” He chuckled, a deep rumbling sound. Still chuckling he slid down from his stool and came stumping over to them, jerking impatiently at the chain, making the slide squeal as it ran along its track. He was a stubby figure, legs so short his fingers nearly touched the floor when he stood erect. His shoulders and arms were powerful, thick in both dimensions: they looked as if he’d stolen them from a man three times his height. He had coarse shaggy hair he wore twisted into a spiky mane; his head was narrow and long, his mouth wide; his eyes gleamed in the dimness like molten gold, at once savage and filled with a sardonic amusement at the vagaries of life. A typical Kakeran. At home he’d have half a dozen docile wives and innumerable children running wild through the tree paths while he used up his abundant energy directing at least three companies and sitting on half a dozen local boards. Here, even the collar about his neck and the chain that tethered him failed to diminish the force of his personality or the nervousness of Hordar who had to work around him. A lot of the locals, Hordar and Huvved alike, sighed with relief when he was put on the night team and they didn’t have to deal with him any longer. “What’s this…”

Before he finished the question, the door opened. Their guard blinked, then slid from his chair, sprawling in an insensate heap on the floor. A man stood in the doorway, a stunner in his hand. “Listen,” he said. Interlingue. Posa Ala’s eyes gleamed. “The three of you are worth about seven thousand gelders to me the day I set you down on Helvetia. You coming?”

Posa Ala shook the chain. “You blind?”

“No.” The man grinned at them. “Just wanting no argument if one of you’s not inclined to trust me.”

Otsut shivered; Posa Ala touched her arm. “Leave this to me, sweet one. Trust isn’t in it. Give us a name. I think I know you. Make me sure of it.”

The man raised a brow, not the one touched by the scar. “Quale. Ship Slancy Orza .”

Posa Ala grinned. “Yah so. Five years back. The Swart Allee, University. You had a friend with funny fur.”

“That was a busy night. I don’t remember a Kakeran in the mix.”

“I was on the bottom of the pile when you showed up; by the time I worked loose you and your friend were kiting out with half a dozen Proctors on your tail. I heard later you led them on a pretty chase and lost them in the Maze. But reminiscences, however pleasant, can wait for a more propitious place and time. I presume you’ve got a cutter on you that can handle this steel.” Once again he shook the chain.

“Better than that.” Quale dipped into his pouch, tossed an autopick to Posa. “We’re parked on the roof. A skip. You know this place better than I do; we couldn’t do much groundwork because we didn’t know you’d be here until yesterday morning. Any guard checks due soon?”

“No. They airship us over, lock us in with some cretin like that fool there and forget us till morning.” Posa Ala examined the pick, smiled as if he’d found something good to eat and clicked it home. When his collar was off, he turned to Otsut. “Not just us, eh?”