Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

Where she stood she could see the entrance to the Bridge, an oval like the rest of the doorways but larger. Much larger. The door was laminated bronze with an antique patina and the Imperatorial sigil in onyx calligraphy on a silver shield. Impressive, but they had its key and that key was her mother, Adelaar sitting out in the tug, playing her nay-saying tunes through the tap. At the proper time, she’d send a command bouncing through the satellite, down to the mainBrain and up again through the slavelink into the shipBrain. Open the door. And the door would open.

She could hear the ship breathing, the hushed whirr of fans that pushed the cleansed and constantly renewed air through the web of conduits; she could hear clicks and creaks and feel a subliminal hum through the soles of her sandals. A mite in the gut of an immense indifferent beast. She moved closer to the door and saw the invisible turn visible, pip-pop unroll the curtain, shape the beast from shade to solid, magic hardening into mundane. Pels kurk Orso, graduate engineer and living toy. She watched the flow of his broad black hands as he used a silent sign talk to argue with Quale. I wonder what that’s about? The exchange ended. Pels shrugged, rippled out again and went back to his snooping. Quale crossed the chamber at a rapid trot, stopped beside one of the exits.

Two guards came sauntering along the corridor attached to that exit, chatting as they walked; their voices came ahead of them, announcing them before they appeared. A hard nervous hand on Aslan’s arm pulled her away from the door. Karrel Goza dropped to a crouch, his pellet rifle ready. The guards, a pair of Tassalgans, appeared and turned away from the Bridge, started to turn back as they realized what they’d seen-Swardheld Quale standing there, a stranger in the ship. Before they completed the turn, their faces went slack and they dropped into a heap, one falling on the other.

Quale replaced his stunner, checked his thumbring. “Time,” he said.

Lirrit Ofka moved swiftly past Karrel, ran to join Elmas Ofka; Karrel Goza looked at Aslan, Churri, Xalloor. “Go,” he said. “I’ll follow.”

Xalloor moved with her awkward dancer’s grace past Aslan, muttering as she went, “There’s hardly enough trust around here to gild a snort.”

Pels was momentarily visible, solid, focused on the great bronze door, his chunky body quivering with an eagerness as great as that she saw in the Hordar who had a much bigger stake in the outcome. He must have done things like this a thousand times before; that didn’t seem to matter. Like me, Aslan thought, how I get when I step out on a new world.

The door snapped open.

A wave of change passed over Pels, erased him. The ripple in the air moved swiftly ahead of Quale as he ran onto the Bridge, his stunner humming softly. T’pmmmm, t’pmmmm, t’pmmmm, Aslan heard as she hung back, waiting for this bit to end, it wasn’t her idea of a good time. T’krak’k’k, t’rak’k’k. That had to be pellet guns. She looked at Xalloor, grimaced. The dancer lit up with one of her flash-grins, let the babies play, she mouthed. Fffft, ffft’t’t’t, fffft, isya darters. Poison, she thought. Some babies. When they stepped over the sill, half the Bridge crew were collapsed at their stations, dead or stunned, the rest were standing or sitting, staring with dull incredulity at what-is-impossible.

The Huvved Captain sat in a swivelchair that was raised higher than the rest and out in the middle of the chamber where the occupant could see everything taking place at the various stations, a massive kingseat, squatly powerful, with lights like jewels on the boxy arms, sensor pads useless as jewels because Adelaar had managed a minor coup and put through a demand-command that tied up most of the input available to the shipBrain, a move made necessary because this noble Captain knew all about defending himself from rebelling crews, though he had only the most rudimentary idea of the other powers under his hands. He was tall and firmly muscled with a patina of softness beginning to blur the clean outlines of his body. His face was plucked and painted into a dainty mask, his straight fair hair was plaited with gold and silver wire, arranged into loops and swirls until it was more like a minor sculpture than something that grew on a man’s head. He wore a yoss silk tunic and trousers, both dyed a lustrous black and over them a sleeveless robe woven in one piece by one of Tairanna’s premier weavers, a tapestry in black and silver with touches of aquamarine and olive, a heavy, extravagantly beautiful creation. Muscles bulged beside his mouth and his long silver nails were pressed so hard against the chair arm that several of them had cut through the padding and two had broken off near the quick.

“On your feet, babe.” Quale snapped his fingers, pointed across the room. “Jamber, Karrel, get the rest of them over there, against the wall. Pels, we could use some slavewire.” He frowned at the Huvved, lifted his stunner. “You can walk or I can drag you.”

The Huvved glared at him, didn’t speak, didn’t move.

“Your choice.” Quale thumbed the sensor, waited until the Huvved collapsed, then climbed onto the chair, got a handful of braids and jerked, then he jumped down, stripped the beautiful robe off and straightened up holding it. He looked it over. “Nice,” he said. “Hanifa, local work?”

Elmas Ofka’s eyes were bright with hostility quickly veiled. “Shopping? Is this the proper time, Yabass?”

“We take our profits when they come, Hanifa.” He tossed the robe over the arm of the kingseat. “If you have many weavers who can produce work like this, you’ve got a treasure here. I give you that bit of information as lagniappe, it’s worth what it’s worth.” He stooped, grabbed a handful of hair and dragged the Huvved across the room.

Aslan watched, amused at her own reaction to this and at the disapproval on Churri’s face; the poet wanted drama, not two traders arguing mildly over markets and somebody’s weaving skill. It wasn’t the sort of thing that made great legends. Good thing Mama isn’t here yet, this could degenerate into a bidding war, not the shooting kind. She glanced at Xalloor, caught her laughing at them all; she grinned back, then started a tour of the bodies and the wounded. There were very few dead; Quale and Pels had stunned more than half before the guns and darters got busy. She looked round, indignant; nothing was being done about the wounded. She met Xalloor’s eyes, mimed winding a bandage about her head. The dancer nodded and grabbed hold of Pels as he went trotting past, a coil of slavewire in one hand. “You know something about this…” She waved her hand in a quick expressive circle. “Where’d Lan and me find ourselves some medpacs?”

Pels wrinkled his black nose. “Try the panels by the door, they’re stores of some kind. Hey, Quale, you got the pick?” Quale dug into his belt pouch, tossed the rod to him, then went back to what he was doing. “Here, run the blunt end over anything that looks like a lock.”

While Aslan and Xalloor poured on antisep and slapped bandages on whatever happened to be bleeding, Jamber Fausse’s fighters were snipping sections of slavewire and packaging up the stunned, the intact and the not too badly wounded, and trading jokes as they hauled their prisoners across to the wall and stacked them like firewood. Elmas Ofka glittered with triumph, stalking back and forth across short distances with the feral impatience of a hunting cat. Quale moved over to the comstation. “Pels, it’s time to call Mama.”

Adelaar’s face appeared in one of the smaller screens. Quale set his hand on the Rau’s shoulder. “We’ve got the Bridge. You can turn loose the tap.”