Jo Clayton: Shadow of the Warmaster

Quale brushed at his mustache, nodded. (Why doesn’t he just ask? Is this meant to impress me? Pompous idiot. Oh god, how long do I have to sit here keeping my face straight?) “Kinok,” he said, “you know them the hard way, what do you think?”

The bud Kahat skittered along a heavy tentacle, perched on the voice box; ves umbilical pulsed, ves hairfine digits manipulated the minute sensorboard.

“They are very careful.” The synthesized voice was a sweetly musical tenor, quietly absurd (a Paem playing gentle jokes on vesself, the heavens should open). “They hold records on the meat back to creation or as close as they can get. Keep it legal, keep the record trail clean, if there’s anything gray, wash it white or bury it deep. Ve-who-speaks was sold and sold again without diminishing ves debt one ounce gold, they charge for air, they charge for transport, food, sewage removal, soilage, anything they can imagine and their imaginations are vast. Ve-who-speaks must agree with Kumari; the profit is beyond conjecture great to tempt Bolodo across the line. Ve-who-speaks also believes very few, an inner circle of execs, know of this operation and this circle will not allow information about it to escape their hands; even their nervousness they will clutch tight to their bosoms; for beings who suspect trouble such urgency would be damning. Ve-who-speaks thinks that is why aici Arash has escaped serious difficulty till now. This is speculation, Swar, errors are likely. Say it is this way, in her search for her daughter, aici Arash leaves traces behind that are used to ID her after she is gone; if such happened before she went, she would be dead. So the circle knows her name, connects her with her daughter, realizes her daughter is involved with the secret thing. They do not know precisely what she has discovered, but they must fear she had enough to go looking and that is dangerous. They send word to their stringers to locate and remove her as a matter of swatting a nuisance, no great urgency in it, only a chance for an ambitious outerling to earn company points. They woo Luck but will not trust Her. Ve-who-speaks believes they are now organizing something more serious. Ve-who-speaks says deal with aici Arash, it is no longer possible to stand aside.” The bud Kahat went still, Kinok turned his eye clusters from the screen, turned them back, jolted Kahat into renewed activity. “Shadow comes. Byol tok, Swar. Consider.”

The cell went dark.

Kumari nodded. “I agree. Active or passive, we’re in it. I prefer to be paid for working.”

Pels said nothing, showed his teeth in a feral grin that unfortunately made him look like a naughty cub.

Quale tapped off the screen, sent it folding into the desk, turned to face Adelaar. “You pay fuel and reasonable expenses. That is not negotiable. My base fee is fifty thousand Helvetian gelders. You being Adelaris, I have a proposition. Ten thousand only, escrowed, the rest I’ll take in trade, Adelaris systems for my house and my ship, supposing we come out of this with skins intact and brain in working order.”

“Generous, I don’t think. Two thousand, house or ship, not both.”

“Mmmh, think of it as a professional discount. The ship gets a complete workover, the house an appraisal with suggestions for improvement, I do the actual work. Five thousand gelders.”

“Three thousand.”

“Done. You like storms?”

“What?”

“Storms.” He waved a hand at the window where the rain was sheeting across the glass.

She looked from him to the shifting silvery streaks. “I suppose I do. As long as it’s not raining down my neck.”

“Then we’ll have tea in the garden.” He came out of his chair with that loose ease that continued to stir things in her she didn’t want stirred; she didn’t like him, he was too chaotic and cluttered for her taste, too wild, undisciplined, a weed, too young. She kept thinking of negatives, but as she gave him her hand and he lifted her from the clinging tupple chair, they kept fading on her. “A serviteur will take you there,” he said, “if you don’t mind. I’ll start shutting the house down, be with you shortly. Pels and Kumari are there, ask them anything you want. We’ll be leaving soon as the rain quits.” He walked with her to the tube, opened it for her, twitched his mustache at her as she stepped silently into the tube. Damn the man, he had to know the effect he had on women. That creature Kumari, his leman?

The serviteur was waiting for her in the living room; the debris from the meal was gone, but the rest of the clutter was untouched, was likely to stay untouched for however long it took to find Aslan. Shaking her head, she followed the small bot as it hummed away, gliding a meter off the floor.

Pels and Kumari sat at a table in an open structure of stressed wood molded into a round of arches with a circular roof of roughcut shakes. Its floor was raised shoulder high off the grass and looked out over scattered beds of brilliantly colored flowers and convoluted, variously textured banks of fern. The deflector field shunted aside the rain as the clouds boiled black and wild overhead and lightning walked along the valley floor some distance below the house. Adelaar smiled with pleasure as she heard the hoom of the wind, the steady hiss of the rain, the crack of thunder and lightning, Quale said the storms were spectacular; that was rather an understatement. She climbed the steps, gave Pels and Kumari a nod, a stiff impersonal smile, and settled into the chair Kumari pulled out for her. “Quale said something about closing down the house.”

Up close Kumari looked less human; her skin was white and translucent as milkglass (milkglass maiden) and delicately scaled, no eyebrows, her nose was a low knife blade slightly turned up at the tip with narrow nostrils, small mouth a pale pale bluish pink, narrow jaw, pointed chin; she was narrow and angular as a primitive sculpture, her hands were extravagantly long and thin; there was a faint drag on her flesh that suggested she’d been born and reared on a lighter world than this. “He means we’ll probably get away clean, but Bolodo is apt to slag the place out of sheer snittishness. He’s setting the automatics. May work, may not, depends on what they send.”

“Planetaries won’t keep them out?”

“What planetaries?”

“Oh.” Adelaar looked round. “Then why…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kumari made an odd little sound, a rattling hiss that Adelaar eventually interpreted as laughter. “He spent half a dozen years building the place, he was worse than a wounded auglauk when he had to admit it was finished. He’s been walking around muttering to himself about redoing this or that, but he can’t convince himself he could do better; if Bolodo levels it, he’ll have the fun of rebuilding. Right, Pels?”

The furry person produced a rumbling chuckle. “Improve his temper no end.”

Adelaar watched the storm a while; she was intensely curious about these two, but couldn’t in courtesy ask for their life histories; courtesy aside, they were not likely to bare their souls for her, a stranger and a mere client. “You’re Quale’s Crew?”

Pels answered her. “Two thirds…”

Kumari broke in, “One half. You’re forgetting Kahat.”

“Shoosh, Kri, Kahat? That’s the third Kahat ves had since ve came.” He dug into his face fur with short black claws that looked as formidable as his tearing teeth, explained to Adelaar what he meant. “Kinok eats the current Kahat every two years when the bud’s about to complete separation. Sacrifice to the drives, ve says. You know Sikkul Paems?”

“I know.”

“Me, I’m com off and Kumari, she’s Ship’s Mom; she knows everything about everything.”