by Jo Clayton
Ceam rested his chin in his hands. “Mm. You get caught in it?”
“Ihoi! did we.” She took a long careful look at the canyon below, lowered the binocs, and rubbed at her eyes. “Makes you dizzy, this. Engebel, see if you can work out a way to get at that thing.” She passed the glasses to her Keteng companion. “How many and what schedule are they keeping?”
He wriggled from the rim so the Keteng could take his place, stood when he was far enough that he wouldn’t be seen from below, dusted himself off and sat with his back against one of the scrub gumas clinging to the slope behind the canyon lip. “Two mesuch. Four hours on, four off. The pair on duty when I got here were sloppier about it. Did a lot of leaving the machine to run itself. Next lot, though, they rung the changes by the bell. That’s the way it’s been since. Twelve days I been here, they’ve had three personnel switches, new mesuch coming in second day, sixth day, first lot came back yesterday. They were hot to hold sched, figure they got chewed out about it, but they’re already starting to get lazy. I’d say tonight or tomorrow would be best time, they won’t be cleaning up yet for next rotation.” He glanced at the three Meloach squatting silent in the shade of the other gumas. “New kind of Mengerak?”
Leoca sighed. “In a way. Chetiel, Tengel, and Bliull were students of ours. Engebel and I, we’re teachers. Cha oy, we were before the mesuch came. Story you probably heard a hundred times, they hauled Fior off to labor camps, killed any Keteng they could catch, and burned the Dumel.”
Ceam grunted. “How you going to fix them?”
“Hokori puffballs. The spores get into the part that runs the machines and make it go crazy. Couple of the Meloach get under the crawlers between the tracks, pop a dozen spores into the air intake and, oh, twenty minutes later, the thing’s junk.”
“I was warned to stay telkib melkib from them. Alarms go off, I get roasted. How…”
“Something we found out by accident a couple ten-days ago. Meloach don’t register on their detectors. Our younglings there can slide right up to the crawlers before the mesuch know what’s happening. About a dozen klids like us moving on Crawlers this tenday. Want to get as many of them as we can before they figure out what’s happening and how to stop us.”
Ceam glanced at the sun, eyes squinted against the glare. Half an hour of light left, maybe a bit more. He wriggled closer to the rim, trained the binocs on the trees behind the Crawler. The klid should be in place now. Not a sign of them. Good thing, that. His mouth pinched to a narrow line as he saw one of the mesuch move into the doorway of the Crawler living space and stand staring at the canyon rim. Nervous, are you, scraem? I hope you’ve got reason you don’t know about. “Ah!”
A small, agile shadow snaked from under the trees and vanished beneath the Crawler. As Leoca said, no alarm.
Ceam smiled. If the teachers are right and hokori spores can poison that thing, Chel Dй be blessed, there’ll be a dozen of the monsters dead soon. Not too soon-for me.
The Meloach slid out and crawled for the trees. Xe looked wobbly now, uncertain.
Xe must have got a whiff of them xeself Move, child. Go on, go on, keep going. Aid good.
One of the other Meloach slipped from the trees, caught the first by the arm, and half-lifted, half-dragged xe back into shelter.
Ceam moved the binocs to the door into the Crawler shell. As the sun slid completely behind the peaks, the light visible through the louvers that protected the windows were lines of yellow on a black ground, the open door a yellow rectangle interrupted by the blocky form of the Chav.
The mesuch turned his head, said something to the other one, his voice a grumble on the wind, the words unintelligible. He moved inside and pulled the door shut.
For half an hour nothing happened.
The door to the Crawler burst open, the two mesuchs stumbled out, choking, coughing, wisps of smoke following them, the yellow glow behind them flickering as if it were firelight rather than electric. As the mesuchs flung themselves onto the creek to wash the spore dust off them, the light pulsed a last time and went out.
Ceam smiled with pleasure. It worked. The Crawler’s dead.
The smile vanished as the cliff groaned and shifted under him. He heard a horrible whining sound below him. When he looked down, he saw the nose end of one of the mole machines poke through the stone; a moment later the rest of it followed and it fell into the canyon, landing with a crash that echoed from wall to wall and a flare of light that started spots dancing before Ceam’s eyes.
“Ihoi!” As the stone started shaking under him like a Keteng in the grip of berm fever, Ceam scrambled away from the edge and watched with horror as another of the machines screamed out where he’d been lying. It turned end for end and ate its way back into the stone.
He snatched his pack and bolted up the uneven mountainside rising from behind the canyon rim.
The mining machines screamed, the high whines lifting the hairs on his arms and neck; the groaning and cracking of the stone got louder. As the dirt slipped under his feet, trying to drag him with it, the mountain rocked and shuddered, the trees around him cracked and groaned, he caught at branches, brush, used them to pull himself along, fell to his knees again and again, the pack he held by one shoulder strap nearly wrenched from his grasp. He scrambled on, struggling to get over the shoulder of the mount, onto the far slope.
* * *
Near dawn when the mountain had settled to its ordinary stolidity, Ceam crept back, keeping a careful watch on the sky to make sure no airwagons were around. At the edge of the still unstable scree, he stopped and looked down along what had once been a canyon wall.
The Crawler had escaped much of the slide, but a few huge chunks of stone had brushed against it and tumbled it onto its side. It looked like a dead nagal tipped on its back, the tracks like broken legs tucked close to the shell. Ceam set the binocs to his eyes and picked up glints of starlight from the twisted torn metal of the mining machines, mixed inextricably with the shards of stone. Near the Crawler he spotted an arm and a leg in the dull gray of mesuch worksuits poking from under a pile of debris. Either the second mesuch got away on foot or he was mashed to pulp under the fallen stone.
After a last scan with the binocs, he resettled the ‘straps of the pack and began making his way down back around the mountain, a small contented smile on his round, lined face.
2
Ilaцrn sat in the corner of the Ykkuval’s consultation chamber, playing wallpaper music on the harp and listening to the reports coming in on the com. He kept his head down, his eyes on his fingers so he wouldn’t betray the satisfaction he felt. Six Crawlers and their moles completely destroyed. Two intact but needing a complete replacement of the control system and new moles. Four Crawlers with only minor damage because the crews were alert enough and lucky enough to get the systems shut down before the spores had a chance to destroy them-all that working on information he’d passed out of the Kushayt. Matha matha, it was a piece of luck, that, hearing the report about the spores. He freed one hand, stroked it with loving care along the wood of the harp frame. Your doing, my sweet mistress, all you.
His heart had nearly failed him the morning a ten-day ago when Hunnar’s voice sounded behind him as he finished coding some information he’d picked up about movements of the Crawlers.
“Why haven’t you played that before?”
Ilaцrn eased himself away from the harp and got to his feet, moving stiffly, his knees aching because he’d sat so long on the cold damp earth. He folded his hands, bowed his head. “Oh Ykkuval, I was mourning. The time is finished now, so I play again. I was Ard, O Ykkuval. I was a master harper. It was my life.”
“That was a strange piece you played. Jarring.”
“Oh, Ykkuval, it was a study, not a finished piece. An exercise. Something to get my hands in shape again.”
“Play something more ahh euphonious. Something more suited to Dushanne.” Hunnar strolled off, glancing back now and again, a thoughtful frown on
his heavy face.
Ilaцrn leaned into the harp and considered what he should play. By way of their intimate connection through the probe sessions, he knew Hunnar better than most of his own people, knew the Chav’s pretensions and limitations. Something simple but flashy. His mouth twitched, into his first unbitter smile in months as he thought how like this mesuch was to more than one Ordumel Teseach he’d known. He started playing Ard Amorane’s Trick-and tricked himself. He forgot about Hunnar and the mesuch, even about his sioll, losing himself in the sheer joy of the sound.
Hunnar’s voice brought him back all too soon to the reality of his life.
“… to judge with that primitive instrument you play, but the touch is lyrical, the tone most pleasing to the ear. An artist. Yes. Anyone can grub in a garden, but a true artist must follow his gift. We pride ourselves on our taste, we highborn. And our generosity. A gift like that puts a man outside of caste, makes him worthy of our patronage…
Ilaцrn stopped listening; he could guess what outside of caste meant. Pampered pet dancing to the whim of the patron. I’d rather be your gardener than your “artist in residence,” but I don’t have a choice, do I. Hm. I can try telling you the garden refreshes my soul and I need to work here. Wonder if that’ll work? If I can’t get out… cha oy, it has to work.
Endless sweet soft ripples flowing from his hands, Ilaцrn watched the Ykkuval’s anger rise as his eyes moved over screen after screen of reports on the destruction the spores had caused. Reports of villages burned in retaliation. Empty villages. Reports from the fliers scouring the mountains with motion and heat detectors. No locals sighted, either species. Empty land, but out of that land, destruction rising.
Hunnar tapped a sensor. “Memur Tryben, I want you.”
Ilaцrn touched the strings, the music he made barely audible, hoping Hunnar would forget he was there. He wanted very much to listen in on this conference, but he didn’t know enough about the Chave to measure the weight of Hunnar’s decision to make his native Harp Master an ornament and a testimony to his status. The lowering of the sound level backfired, though, winning him a glare from Hunnar. Without changing expression, he gradually returned to the way he’d been playing before.
Hunnar relaxed, closed his eyes, began tapping his claws on the chair’s arm, not getting the beat quite right until Ilaцrn altered it to match the clicking of those claws.
A soft buzz.
Hunnar sighed and sat up. He tapped the sensor and when the door opened, waved the Chav who came in to the honor chair at the end of the desk.
The Security Chief glanced at Ilaцrn, his brow ridges drawn down. For a moment Ilaцrn thought he was going to protest, but the Chav’s eyes went dull as he slipped the Harper into the slot that Chave kept for such beings and forgot about him.
“We’re hemorrhaging, Tryben.” Hunnar waved a hand at the images frozen on the viewscreens. “I want it stopped.”
Tryben’s face went blank, his secondary lids glistening a moment before he caught hold of his temper and recouched them. “I hear, O Ykkuval.”
Hunnar made an impatient movement with his eating hand. “Pull your claws in, Memur. I’m not blaming you.” He flattened his hands on the desktop, his inner lids dropping till his eyes glistened as if they were greased. “Thanks to our illustrious Comptroller back home, none of us have the men or equipment we need.” He drew in a long breath, snorted it out. “Have you discovered what it was caused all the damage?” -
“Spores. From some kind of puffball thing. We had some trouble with it before. You remember? The Drudges’ dirtboards went crazy and stopped working and when we opened them up, it was like they were coated with sooty hair. Same thing. All twelve. No way this was an accident.”
“If they could do it out there, we’re vulnerable here. What are you doing about that?”
“I’ve got the tech working on intake screens and baffles with burnclean sections. Should be fitted up in a day or two. We’ve set tingler fields around the rest of the Crawlers and stepped up the sensitivity of the alarm systems. The hayv won’t get near enough to get their filth into the system.”
“So they’ll try something else. Hm. The locals in the camps know something, I can smell it on them. Haul in the headmen and probe them to their back teeth. I want to know what their grandfathers had for breakfast.” He paused, stared blankly past Tryben. “And pick up some of the vegheads. Try the probe on them, see what you come up with. I don’t expect much, but you never know when your luck might pop hot.”
“O Ykkuval, I’ll set that going immediately.” Tryben paused, straightened his shoulders.
In his corner Ilaцrn’s fingers fumbled and he almost lost the beat in his surprise at seeing that bloody-handed butcher nervous as a tadling at his apprentice trials.
“If the Comptroller would authorize the importation, I’d like to do an EYE sweep of the range.” The words were slow and heavy, the Memur’s gravelly voice devoid of inflection. “Ten fliers and two channels cleared for the pickup. It is the only way we can possibly find the saboteurs in all that forest and stone. Heat pickups, motion readers, and visuals just will not do the job. I suspect what we are looking for are small groups moving on foot, impossible to tell from grazing herds and other natural phenomena.” He lowered his eyes to his hands and waited for the answer.
“If they’d listened to me, you’d have had EYEs weeks ago. No. I won’t bother asking again. There’s no point to it. I can give you five fliers. With all these Crawlers down, we’ve got that much excess capacity. Pick your men, tell them to do the best they can, ash whatever shows up on the monitors.” A slash of his hand cut off the discussion. “Medtech Muhaseb. You’ve been watching to make sure he’s not slipping word out about the husk?”
Memur Tryben lifted his head, settled into the chair, the dangerous moment had passed. This was business as usual and he was comfortable with it_ “None of the techs working on the analysis have been given access to the com. Or to other techs. We’ve been monitoring them since you set up the project.”
“Hm. There was an interesting com call last night. Jindar ni Koroumak. Making noises like he wanted to be invited out here. Hunting, he said. What could I do? He’ll be here with his idiot followers in less than a month. Be prepared to have him nosing about the labs.”
“Ah. I see. Your interest in this is kept close, I guarantee that, and Muhaseb’s group is buffered. I’ll make sure he doesn’t get near them. News slipping out about the smoke is something else. The high that comes from burning the husks is common knowledge among techs and Drudges. You know how such things get about among the lower orders. Farkli the Drudge, the one who runs the lubbot, he’s complained more than once about the stink and the drain on his income. Seems the smoke suckers don’t drink as much as they did before.” Tryben flexed his arms in the Chav equivalent of a shrug. “Techs coming off duty will raid one of the Sleeping Grounds and bring back as much of the husk as they can conceal in their gear. They have enough sense to keep their smoke sucking for off-duty hours. So far, anyway, but it seems to be quite addictive, so that may change soon. At least half the techs working on the analysis are showing signs of smoke dependence.”
“Looks like we’ve got another Tirassci brewing. Kir and chich! As if I needed more trouble. How bad is it?”
“With our limited numbers here, it’s not surprising that nearly all of the subclasses have tasted smoke. Without rigorous tests, any numbers would be hardly more than a guess, but I’ll give them to you. Fifteen mining techs left. All have some degree of dependence. Six med techs. As I said before, four of the six are showing signs of dependency. Ten Drudges. Two of them got beaten for stealing Husk from techs. Most have no contact with the smoke. Twenty-four Guards. Six have drunk smoke on their off-hours, the others just get drunk. Six com and repair techs. All have tasted smoke. Two seem to be dependent, the others prefer Farkli’s yang. Early results of the med techs’ investigations seem to show smoke isn’t as destructive as Tirassci chaw. At
least not so swift a decay of nerve cells. Hard to say. We’d need to test long term users and we don’t have any of those.”
“Hm. Set a trap at one of the Sleeping Grounds. The Harper says those that tend the place are addicts. Find an old Cousin hanging around because he can’t walk away from his habit, you’ll get your long-term study with enough crossover to be useful.”
“Ah. I’ll do that.”
They continued to talk for another hour and Ilaцrn sat in his corner, playing his wallpaper music and stewing with impatience. He had to get into the garden. What he’d heard was important, he had to get it out. He closed his eyes and began setting the news into Riddle Mode. Mesuch hunting mountain length, burning everything that moves. Repeat. Repeat. Trap at Sleeping Ground. Repeat. Repeat. Hunting and watchers. Repeat. Repeat. Leaders in the labor camps. Repeat. Repeat. Mesuch are coming to get them. Repeat. Repeat. Scrape their brains of everything they know. Repeat. Repeat. Anyone with secrets get away. Get away now.
When Memur Tryben left, Hunnar got to his feet and paced the length of the room over and over, scowling at the tiled floor though it was obvious he saw nothing of the blocky design; he was walking off the anger he’d kept locked away as long as anyone who mattered was in the room. Back and forth, back and forth until Ilaцrn was dizzy from watching him. Back and forth, back and forth-and then he stopped, stared at the wall of screen, went to his desk and reached toward the sensor board.
He drew his hand back, turned his scowl on Hewn. “Take your meal early. You’ll be playing for my dinner tonight.” He cupped his hand across his mouth, examined the worn gray tunic and trousers the Harper wore. “I’ll have the terzin run up a formal robe for you. You’ll wear that tonight. That thing you played in the Dushanne Garden. I want that. Something complementary to go with it. I’ll leave that up to you. Impress them and you won’t find me ungrateful.”
