Джулия Чернеда - Changing vision

As if thinking about the Web my friend had forged for himself among these beings was a summons, I saw a turning of heads and heard cheerful hellos near the main doors, open to the night air. My hand involuntarily crept to my gift, three supple fingers curling around its edge. Would he like it ?

It seemed unlikely I'd find out any time soon. Not only was the hospitable milling that signaled the tall, slender Human's entrance not moving any closer to where I waited, it began to seem as though Paul was attempting to leave without joining the party. Something was wrong , I decided, moving myself. The faces around me grew momentarily puzzled as their owners gave me room.

Paul Cameron, despite his tendency to dress conservatively and stay out of the limelight, was not a Human easily missed, a useful characteristic as I relied on his dark, perennially rumpled hair as a marker to guide me through the mass of taller and shorter beings, all intent on wishing me the best. There was something about the graceful way he carried himself, the way his gray eyes fixed with intensity on anything of interest—as they did once he spotted me. He smiled easily, and usually sincerely, so the falseness of that expression on his face this time was fair warning.

"We have a problem," Paul confirmed quietly, my ears well-tuned to his low voice

despite the babble as I drew near. I spared an instant to wonder if he meant our tradition of an open bar when entertaining clients and staff, noticing more than a few individuals hanging around the entryway who were definitely not on my original invitation list. The more the merrier, I believe had been the Human expression Meony-ro had used when taking that responsibility from me at what, I now admitted, had been a weak moment.

More than uninvited guests , I realized almost at once, reading my friend's face with the ease of long practice. His smiles for the well-wishers on every side didn't warm the somber look in his gray eyes, eyes that met and held mine with a clear message.

The kind of trouble we had to handle on our own.

I pressed my cup of well-nursed spurl into the nearest willing appendage. "Excuse us," I said to no one in particular, forcing my sensitive ears up and open in a relaxed gesture despite the almost painful decibel level in the lobby. "Always business. I keep telling the Human: if it's not on a collision course for the bank, it can wait."

There was the expected round of chuckles and amused grunts. Paul was widely considered the serious half of our business, despite the respect given to my expertise in evaluating merchandise and predicting trends. All true .

Cue and excuse given, Paul didn't waste any time heading back out the doors, not bothering to check I was behind. In a hurry, then , I thought uneasily, following as quickly as politeness and the width of my present feet allowed. Fortunately, no one seemed to care that the hosts, and so the erstwhile reasons for the party, were leaving—something I supposed could also be attributed to Meony-ro's expanded guest list and our largesse behind the bar. I shunted the appropriate memo to a part of my private memory I would access tomorrow.

Paul led the way around the rear of the squat utilitarian building housing the offices of Cameron & Ki Exports at the edge of the Minas' shipcity. The shipcity itself made up more than two thirds of the area of Fishertown, a reasonable proportion, since almost everyone in Fishertown worked at the shipcity or provided some service to the spacers and their ships, from freighter fleets such as the Largas'

to smaller independents. Ours wasn't the best location—we hadn't paid premium price or tax for one of the newly glamorous areas of extra conveniences. Paul had agreed it would arouse suspicion to live beyond our obvious means. Over time, Cameron & Ki Exports had come to turn a decent profit, albeit not a huge one. It was our inclination. And it was safer.

Although , I sighed to myself, considering the stark, practical ugliness of the colonial-era architecture looming ahead, it would have been nice to dip into the vast store of credits and other currency I'd inherited as last of my Web and at least plant an imported shrub or two . Minas XII's charming climate, at its best, encouraged a mind-numbing variety of low-to-the-ground bushes and flowers that burrowed into the soil to meet their pollinators.

"In here," the Human said unnecessarily as he waved his right hand before the lock pad of the warehouse side door, our private entrance. "I've put him in the

customs-pending vault."

"Put who? And why in the vault?"

"Not here," was his cryptic and most-unhelpful reply, considering we were the only beings currently not inside enjoying the party, the sounds of which still came quite clearly to my ears. Paul tended to err on the side of caution. He was beginning

, I thought dourly, to sound more like Ersh every decade .

We entered the warehouse without turning on the interior lights, a move that seemed more in keeping with potential burglars than owners. Who or what had Paul put in the vault? What , I hoped for its sake, since, as storage, the claustrophobic box was far more suitable for a few cases of brandy than anything living and aware.

Paul closed and locked the door behind us, only then activating a hand light. I stood perfectly still until he passed me a second light—the night vision of this form being so poor as to be a joke on several planets and a source of quite real danger on most, if only in terms of collisions with various objects.

"This couldn't wait?" I asked impatiently, although I went after him as he strode to the back corner of the vast, and to me invisible, room. I focused queasily on the dim oval of light aimed in front of my feet, determined not to cycle simply to best him at this trekking about in the perilous dark.

"No, Es. Sorry about the party. But you'll see."

"A few lights would help that," I muttered under my breath.

As it turned out, I didn't need them. My ears involuntarily pricked up and swung forward in response to an almost subvocal moan from somewhere ahead. There were vibrations to the edges of the sound, as though air had passed through a thin layer of moisture. "Paul?" I whispered anxiously. "Who—"

"I don't know his name," my friend said in a heavy voice. "I just know he needs help."

We must have been closer to our destination than my impoverished vision informed me, for suddenly a light came on overhead and, after blinking painfully for a moment, I could see Paul standing in the doorway to the vault itself. He must have left it open: kindness for its occupant and a sensible safety measure, given the regularity with which its cumbersome time lock forgot the date and required the efforts of a locksmith to open during reasonable working hours.

I stepped past him, then halted in the doorway, the fingers of my left hand seeking the comfort of Paul's shoulder in a movement foreign to this form, yet so part of my inner nature by now, I rarely noticed the discrepancy. "I had to bring him to you,"

Paul said as if in apology. "No one else could help."

The Ganthor male lay facing the door, eyes closed into barely perceptible slits, his snout hanging half over the side of the ramshackle cot Paul must have pulled here from the staff room. He was naked, bearing none of the belts or bandoliers usually seen on Ganthor traveling offworld. By the way his thick bristled skin hung in rolls, gathering like so much fabric over each joint of leg and arm, he hadn't eaten properly

in weeks. But it was the huge oozing burn stretching from throat to abdomen that should have killed him by now, despite the fact that it showed signs of decent emergency care. Blasterfire, and at close range. A mercenary .