by Jo Clayton
She’d set herself a limit of three hours. If they didn’t see her before then and let her soothe their little minds, she was leaving. Digby could stir his photons and see if he could identify the smuggler from the description she’d gotten from the Taalav. And then she’d have to decide once more how she wanted to play this.
The image of the Kliu Berej slaughtering the odd little creatures haunted her. Somehow she had to find the arrays and get them away, hide them in a place the Kliu couldn’t reach. Couldn’t reach? Why didn’t I think of it before? Vrithian. No, not Vrithian, the next world out. Storsten. It’s a heavy world like Pillory. Vrithian’s sister world. People have been looking for that system for centuries without getting a smell of it and Lee only found it because her Mum came and got her. Harskari… maybe she can help, she likes gardening… I need to talk to Lee… but I have to find the smuggler first. Have to get her to tell me where they are… She sighed. Digby’s going to have kittens… and I have to find something else to do with my life……
After about an hour and a half of the observers watching her doze, a juvenile Blurdslang drove his nutrient bowl into the room and clicked it in behind the desk. He activated the voice cube and fixed-watery eyes on her.
“What is Digby’s interest in the Market and why didn’t he inform us of his intentions?’
“I’m on leave at the moment, that’s why you weren’t informed. I’m doing a favor for the mother of a friend. Adelaar aici Arash of Adelaris Security Systems.”
‘What favor?”
“I’m to find and interview a young woman who left her employ under clouded circumstances. If the interview is satisfactory, I am to arrange passage for her to University. It’s a very simple business. A call to Adelaris will verify this.”
“The young woman’s name?”
“She may not be using it at the moment, but the name I was given is Mink ac Vissyn. A young Fulladerin from Saber Minor.” She slipped a cased flake from her pouch, seta it on the desk. “Her bio data’s here, if you’d like to take a copy.”
After a moment’s laborious cogitation he tapped off the voice cube and shrilled a spate of Blurdsla into the corn, counting as usual on the fact that few people beyond his species could understand his speech. Shadith kept her face still. She couldn’t get everything, some of the sounds were outside her hearing range, but she could pick up a lot of what was being, said. It was hardly.worth the effort because he was announcing they’d all wasted their time stewing in their dishes over nothing. And what was he supposed to do with the flake she was waving at him?
He listened, tapping irritably with the tips of the thready fingers at the end of a tentacle. When the burst of speech from the com was finished, he reactivated the voice cube. “You will remember that any action against a firm established in any Node of the Market will be dealt with severely. The list of Market Laws and the penalties for violations of them are waiting for you in the Mimarose Ottotel. Review them before you begin your search. You may leave now. Take your flake with you, we are not interested.”
The Node diurn was nearing its end as Shadith left the OverSec complex, the bubble darkening, ripples of vermilion and saffron shimmering behind the flat roofs of the other buildings in the Security Complex. She was feeling quite pleased with herself and had to work to keep from grinning. “We are not interested,” she murmured. “And if you believe that, see this phial I’m holding. Those few golden drops are the Vryhh formula for immortality. I swear it’s true. Tsa!”
The street was empty except for a few peacer ’bots returning for an info dump and recharging. This wasn’t a plac’e where people strolled for pleasure. She marched to the chair pen and thumbed on a chainchair, climbed into it and let it click her toward the lock and the pneumo line that would get her into the Ottotel Node. A rain was scheduled in that Node. Nice. Clean the air and wash everything down. “Then I start hunting. Chatting up everyone I can get to talk to me.”
6
Holoas swirled under the velvet black of the Node shell in its night phase, reflected in the wet pavements and the glass of the show windows. Lost in the mix of crew off the visiting ships, labor from the factories, off-duty guards, merchants, gamblers, thieves, smugglers, gun runners, druggies and dniggers, Cousins and non-Cousins of every shape, color and attribute, some raucous, some musical, some silent, Shadith drifted along the Marrata Circle looking for the places she and her Hired Man had visited the one night she’d spent here last year. She’d thought about seeing whether he was still around, but decided against it. He was altogether too observant and no doubt had rather close ties to OverSec. If she were just playing, she wouldn’t care, but working this double-trace was complicated enough without that sort of close observation.
Music drifted into the street when doors swung open, sliding into her blood, changing the way she walked, the set of her head, the swing of her shoulders. She rethembered the hushed elegance of the Hegger transfer station and laughed aloud, reveling in the difference.
She knew where she’d start her trace and how she was going to do it. It was music. It was always music. She laughed aloud. “The key to the universe,” she sang. “Shadow’s songs.”
In the next three hours she went in and out of the smaller clubs, listening to the music, looking at the custom, sampling what was sold there, moving on again when the mix wasn’t quite right, zigging from side to side around the Circle, sliding into all the dark holes where the crews blew their pay.
Shadith wriggled to a table the size of a washcloth, pushed up against the wall and continually threatened by the swing gate as the serving girls coming from a back room pushed past her, their trays loaded with everything from pelar pipes to jugs of obat raw enough that a sip would pickle the lining of the drinker’s throat. Just the smell was enough to pucker her mouth.
The gloom was sporadically and inadequately lit by drifting spheres of psuedo-foxfire. Faces moved in and out of darkness as they were touched by the cold green light. Mostly they were the usual Cousinly variety, though a group of Lorrunertoerkans hunched over a table near the door, the deep creases in their faces puddling shadow as if they were filled with ink, and a few male Caan eyes flashed to silver then dark as the foxfire drifted near then away.
The stage was empty at the moment; the players finished a set as she came in and moved into the back where no doubt they were communing with their souls via whatever substance they found handy. They were the group she remembered.
It was toward the end of her Night Out when she was feeling no pain and an urge to sing. Though she knew well enough what working musicians thought of pushy amateurs in the grip of wish fulfillment, she teased them into letting her join them, and the snatches of memory that were all she retained the next morning weren’t that embarrassing-at least not the ones that dealt with her singing… though other images… the pile near night’s end… sari
The table beeped to remind her she hadn’t ordered the rent drink yet. She ran through the menu, chose a white syntha wine that shouldn’t be too poisonous and started to chuck a handful of Marratorium tokens in the slot.
“Uh! What…” She looked up into a man’s grinning face. The swinging door had shoved him against her, but he hadn’t resisted it all that much and he didn’t move away when the server dashed past and let the door whoosh shut.
“Whyn’t you let me buy that, chichi? Then you won’t have to look anymore, will you?”
“Zaz off, grot. If I was looking and I’m not, it wouldn’t be for you.”
He ruffled her short curly mop with a big hand, leaned down till she was nearly choking from the haze of obat thick as smog around his mouth. “Your loss, hunbun,” he said. “You sure?” His voice was amiable and lazy as the yawn of a well-fed tiger in a patch of summer sun.
“Yeah, genman, just want to hear the music.” He shrugged and wandered off.
She waved at the stink he left behind, shifted in her chair as sounds of movement on the stage trickled through the noise.
&nb
sp; Flute in one hand, the other shading his eyes, a tall thin man with a bald head and skin that glistened like well-rubbed mahogany ambled along the edge of the stage peering into the crowd. Chali, she thought.
He came round to her side of the stage, grinned, dropped to a squat. “‘E Shadow. Bisa said she saw you come in.”
“Yoh, ’s me. Since I was here a while, thought I’d come give you a listen.”
“We using some of the stuff from last time.” He grinned, broad square teeth flashing white against the dark brown of his lips. “Any more you want to gift us with?”
“Don’t want much, do you?” She chuckled and got to her feet, wriggled past the table. A single step took her to the stage and she held up her hands. “Give me a lift.”
She sang with them several times that night, Chali, Bisa, Herm, and The Max. Flute, viola, keyboard, and bass. At first her hands itched for her harp, then she noticed a change in her singing. She was beginning to develop echoes in the audience, almost weaving dreams again as she had when Kikun was there to give them form. It wasn’t quite right, not yet, but it was coming and it was real, the ache in her head told her that.
She ended the night with just Chali playing and the song she’d written and sung on Ambela not so long ago. “I am fathoms deep,” she sang, and felt those listening come into the circle of her arms, felt them seeing she didn’t know what except it was a dark and melancholy vision as hers had been when she wrote the words.
I am fathoms deep
In love with dark
I fill my mouth with night
And drink the absence
Of the light
Dense and stark
I think
I will not endure
The pure white silence
Of the day
I will sleep the bright away And rise
With the moon
To reprise
The melodies of night.
Stark black and white, her sisters danced for her, the veils they wore swirling about their angular forms. Their eyes were wide and dark with sorrow and farewell, as if they knew they would not come again for her, no matter how strong her gift might grow. They would be wholly dead at last. Dead as Shayalin, burnt to a cinder eons ago, long before her second life in the Diadem and her third life in this body. Dead and gone.
When she finished, the room was silent for several minutes, then the hum of speech rose again and the rapid tinkle of the drink orders and the clunk of the Market tokens in the slots.
She watched the misty outlines of Naya, Zayalla, Annethi, Itsaya, Tallitt, and Sullan fade and vanish. Even with drugs and dreams she couldn’t call them back; the knowledge chilled her to the marrow of her bones, never again, never never never again.
She let Chali and Bisa lead her away. In a little while she was going to tease from them all they knew about the Kliu while she asked them to help find Adelaar’s protegee. In a little while. When she could get her head working again.
7
“Hoo, chals, I’m wiped.” Shadith moved her shoulders, then patted a yawn; the room’s single window was bright with the striated colors of the diurn dawn. “Been dogging on my job long enough.”
Bisa grimaced, worked her mouth. “Something died on my tongue. Job, Shadow?”
“Looking for someone, what I should be doing. You all feel like having a peer at a phot?”
“Why?”
Shadith ignored the sudden wariness in Herm’s voice. “I’m hunting for this girl. A rescue of sorts, no prosecution. She got conned by a scamjack and went off with him because she was too scared to stay behind. Poor kid. Her boss said she’s near genius with tech stuff and a real klutz with everything else. Boss wants her back on the job. The jack’s probably long gone, but the girl’s supposed to be floating around the Market somewhere.”
Bisa held out her hand and scowled when The Max caught her by the wrist. “The two of you can take a long walk out a short lock. Any dirtkickin’ kid that hits the Market without a clue or connections is in bad trouble and you know it.”
She took the flake viewer, clicked it on, and swore. You didn’t say how young she was Shadow.”
“She’s around twenty standard. But a babe when it comes to knowing what’s what. She came out of a foundling home and lived in a dorm when the client took her on as an apprentice?’
Chali took the viewer from Bisa, glanced at the image and passed it to Herm. “Mind telling us who the client is?”
“I’ll tell you this much. I’ve know her for a number of years now She’s the mother of “a friend of mine, and we’ve done a bit of business, together that worked out real well for me. She’s prickly and hard-nosed and I don’t much like her, but when she says she’ll do something, she does it; she plays fair and doesn’t hold grudges. If any of you happen to know the girl, talk to her first, see what she says.” She yawned again. “Sar! I’m tired.” She took the viewer from The Max. “Think about it. I’m hiving in Mimarose. If you decide to give me a call, as a favor, not before Node noon.”
8
Shadith drifted out of sleep, shifting off her stomach onto her side. It didn’t help. She didn’t want to wake, but her bladder gave her no choice. Grumbling under her breath she rolled off the bed and stumbled to the fresher.
When she came back, she saw the message light blinking. She rubbed at her eyes, tried to wake herself enough to cope with whoever was calling. “Read message.”
The words unreeled in a minatory tone as the Marratorium governors wanted to make sure she knew she couldn’t receive pay for singing unless she had a cabaret license and was she planning to apply any time soon? She groaned. “Abort that. Any more messages?”
“One message received and read.” The hum ended and the light clicked off.
“Ah spla. I was afraid of that. Ah well, I did my best. Now it’s back to slogging along the hard way.”
One by one she hit the smaller places along the Circle, showing the viewer, asking her questions. Have you seen this girl? She’s a lamb ripe for shearing and I want to send her home. Do you know anyone who might know where she is?
She chatted with waiters and barmen, waitresses and barmaids, the occasional full-time drunk or dreamer, Cousin and non, even a meditating Sikkul Paem with ve’s budlets sitting in pools of focvoda, doing ve’s drinking for ve, passing the vibes along the rootlets that connected them to their parent. Sometimes she traded stories with all of them about what could happen to girls trying to get by without connections, sometimes she simply gossiped about this and that, her ears primed to pick up any information she could about female smugglers.
Footsore and hoarse from talking so much for such little result, awash from the drinks she’d had to buy, she reached the Tangul Cafй toward the end of the Node afternoon. The shell was beginning to darken and it was the slow time, too late for the working crowd and too early from the night owls. The place was almost empty.
She dropped into a chair at one of the tables near the bar, sighed with the pleasure of getting off her feet, then sat slumped with her head against the wall, her eyes closed. After a moment, she pried them open and inspected the menu written in liquid crystal above the bar mirror.
A jaje waitress came trotting over, her dusky fur absorbing light so efficiently she was little more than a blotch of darkness with a pair of shining gold eyes. “Hard day?” Her voice was as soft and muted as her fur.
“Oh, yes. I think a cup of tea’s all I can manage.” She glanced at the menu again. “Uplands Red.”
“Ah. One of my own favorites. They do it right here, two pots and water on the edge, of boiling.”
“Well, would your bosses infarct if you sat a moment and had a cup yourself? spring for it.” She chuckled as the gold eyes narrowed and the small round ears flattened against the jaje’s skull. “Only renting a moment of your time. You can always walk away.”
“Why not.” The jaje waved a three-fingered hand. “It’s not as if we’re rushed off our feet right now.” A
breathy sucking sound, jaje laughter. “If you come up with a tip, the time might be more fruitful.” She went gliding off.
Shadith took a sip of the tea and smiled with pleasure. “You’re right. Ah, that’s good.” She slipped the flake viewer from her belt pouch and set it on the table close to the edge where the tiny jaje could reach it. “I’m a bitty shovel in Digby’s Excavations.” She went through the patter she’d repeated so many times already. “… no friends, no connections, likely she’s not enjoying herself much these days.”
The jaje tapped on the viewer, examined the image with care, then shook her head. “Sorry. Haven’t seen her. And she’s unusual enough I’d probably have noticed. Too bad. Femmes on their own, even when they know what’s what, they can get in a mess of trouble. At least we jajes have our bond. And the home tree. Sometimes, though… Z-juice I hate that stuff. They got my bonds and me that way. We’ve a long line to swing before we get home again. You offering a reward?”
“I can go high as fifty gelders, higher I’d have to check with the client. I know what you mean. Had my own problems that way. I’m a lot older than I look, and a few years back I was so dewy I might have been just hatched. Ran into a guard on a transfer station who liked ’em young and scared. Tried to use Zombi on me. Ah spla!”
“What happened?”
“He ended in the garbage chute as molecular dust. Not my doing. Long story and complicated. Anyway, that’s when I met Digby the first time.”
The jaje shivered. “We had someone try it here a couple months ago. On this smuggler, at least that’s what the talk was. I suppose she got off with something the Kliu wanted. That’s who they said hired the ghoul. OverSec got real hot. The ghoul’s brain-stripped now and doing a term under Contract. Cheered my bond and me up no end when we heard that.”
