Michael Flynn - On the Razor’s Edge

“Pretty impressive sights.”

“I … haven’t been down yet.”

“Booked on a later shuttle, hey? I’m waiting for my outbound flight, so we’ve both got a couple of hours to kill.” He laid his hand on her arm. “What say we gang up on those hours and kill them together?”

Méarana did not understand what he meant until his hand moved to her thigh. “I’d say there are some pretty impressive sights to see up here,” he added.

Nearby boulevardiers smiled over their cups and croissants. A few made signs with their hands wishing her copulatory success. Evidently, this sort of cold accosting was not unusual here, which eliminated the gelding knife as an appropriate response.

“No,” she said in a low voice, so only the man could hear.

“What? But…”

Méarana used her sky-voice, throwing it so that it seemed to come from over the man’s left shoulder. “She said no!”

He turned to look, saw nothing, and the harper tried to bolt, but the man held tight. He squeezed, hard. “You gene-tampered tease!”

Another voice interrupted. “Excuse me, but that is my seat.”

Fool me twice, shame on me. The man ignored the new voice—until a thick finger tapped him authoritatively on the shoulder. Méarana saw the plumpish woman she had noticed earlier among the passersby. Not plump at all, now that she could see closer up, but simply wide and solid of body. Her hair was a wool cap of tight black curls; her cheeks, a rose-red. But there was something in her eye that seemed familiar.

The importunate man tossed off the last of his drink. “Sorry, ladies,” he said. Rising, he muttered, “All the good ones are taken.”

The strange woman sat herself down and took one of Méarana’s hands in her own. “Work my play, darlin’,” she said. “Smile a little.”

“That man—”

“—saw you sitting alone. Round hereabouts, unless you wear the veil, that means you’re available. Easily available. It’s the way they think out here. Not a one of them can imagine a solitary reason not to indulge their pleasures at any opportunity. They eat when they’re hungry, the drink when they’re dry, they—”

“I get the picture.”

“I don’t know if you do. Because they can’t imagine a refusal, either. Easy indulgence of the senses impairs the reason. It’s how they keep the sheep sheepish.”

“Who are you?” demanded Méarana.

“Just the kindness of strangers, ma’am.”

“No. Strangers don’t do kindness, not in the Confederation, not in the Triangles, and certainly not this close to Dao Chetty.” She stopped.

The plumpish woman raised her eyebrows. “What is it?”

“Your Manjrin has an accent. It’s faint, but it’s definitely there.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake.”

“And you’re letting it show on purpose, aren’t you? It’s Megra—”

“Oh, I don’t think one should speculate overmuch…” She cocked her head as if listening to something, then said, “Best I be going. Listen to Auntie Gwen: You will be visited tonight by a spirit of things to come. Say nothing to anyone.”

With that, “Auntie Gwen” rose from the table and, with unhurried steps, left the patio. Though there was no rush to her movements, she vanished in moments among the surging crowd.

Ravn Olafsdottr sat at the table. “Ooh, you nooty girl!” she scolded. “I said to stay poot. You should not be a wooman aloone.”

“Oh,” said Méarana offhandedly, still thinking about her strange visitor. “I have a guardian angel.”

Guardian angel. Why not say Hound, for that was surely “Gwen’s” profession. The League maintained agents within the Confederation, and Méarana’s mother must have somehow gotten word to them to intercept her at points near Terra. She marveled for a time over the coincidence before she realized that coincidence was not in it. Mother knew Ravn was taking her to Terra. Why pursue when the destination is known? Agents were likely watching at the transfer points at New Vraddy, Bhaitry, and Old Eighty-two as well as at Terra herself.

Méarana sat on her bed in the Four Kings hotel with her knees drawn up under her chin and her arms wrapped around them. Ravn had been a congenial traveling companion—at least she had acted the part—but not until meeting Gwen had Méarana realized how alone and exposed she had been feeling. Even on her quest into the Wild she had had her own companions around her.

As sector evening came on, Ravn stuck her head in the room and announced that she was returning to the message center in case her earlier calling card had found its mark. “I think maybe noot. Is too soon, but who can say?” She flashed her teeth. “Now you stay here, my sweet. Better you be bored in these room than that you be swept up.”

After the Shadow had gone, Méarana hugged her knees tighter. She had not thought on the Shadow War for a long time, so concentrated was she on the task at hand. But that war swirled all around her: silent, deadly, wafting around the unkenning sheep like a ghostly wind—and Ravn was a player in that war. Even the traitors to the Revolution were yet traitors to the Names. So there was no safety or protection for anyone.

The lights in the suite appeared to grow dim, and the temperature fell. Méarana shivered and pulled the blanket from the bed and draped it over her shoulders. But she did not lie down. In the air, she detected a sweetish aroma, something cold and peppermint.

There were no windows in the suite. Ravn had preferred rooms into which none could enter from the outside. Méarana could see the door to the suite from where she sat, and it had not opened since Ravn’s departure. Yet Méarana knew there was someone else in the suite. Perhaps in the kitchenette. Perhaps in the common room. But let it not be in her very room.

Darkness forgathered in corners and spread wraithlike along the folds of the walls, along the baseboard, along the cornice. The common room grew indistinct, faded into gloom. The tapestry beside her bed billowed, as if there had been a breeze. The needlework featured some ancient battle in which men battled with creatures of fiendish mien, men with the heads of dogs. Heads lolled, fangs showed. The rippling curtain sent them into motion, and at each other’s throats.

Hello, Méarana.

Was that a voice? It didn’t sound like a voice, not exactly. It sounded like the whisper of the air circulator. It sounded like the thrumming of the habitat’s engines deep in the bowels of Tungshen Waising. The ripples in the tapestry seemed to move with purpose.

You have caused us a lot of trouble. We ran considerable risks to come here, and it is not yet clear that we have outrun them.

“I’m sorry.”

No, you are not. You would do it again in a metric minute. You went once to rescue your mother; how can you refuse to rescue your father? But the Confederation is not the League; it is not even the Wild. It is something far more deadly than either. You were a fool to step into it, to allow yourself to be taken.

“I know that, but Mother wouldn’t go. I had to force her hand. I knew I would be safe again when she caught up with me.”

You know a great deal that isn’t so. Putting two into danger is not safety.

“You’ve come with her…”

Maybe. We run few and scattered though the coursings of the Confederation. There is no Circuit this side of the Rift. How may our words reach one another’s ear? Perhaps she has been caught and pithed—all because of you.

“No. I would know it if it happened. Our hearts are one. As hers stills, mine stops. Who are you?”

The tapestry billowed revealing … the empty wall behind it.

There are no names.