Shadowplay sq-1

by Jo Clayton

  Engine crew were a pair of Sikkul Paem doublets; they were passing the insplit rooted out and contemplating whatever they used for a navel, so motionless in their dirt beds they might have been still-life holos.

  Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.

  Gray.

  Gray entered her mind and soul; gray sucked the life out of her. It wasn't something new or wholly unex-pected; it'd happened to her once before-last year when she was rattling about Wolff wondering what she was going to do with her life. Aleytys recognized her state near its onset and acted immediately; without bothering to ask her consent, she kicked Shadith's feet from under her, knelt on her and set her healer's hands to work, readjusting Shadith's metabolism, then she shoved her into a flitter and dropped her in the middle of the Wildlands to live or die as she chose. Shadith discovered she wasn't ready to die yet; besides, she was too irritated with Aleytys to give her the satisfaction. That irritation and the struggle to survive jolted her loose from the gray doldrums; it was heart massage in every sense of the word.

  There was no one to jolt her now.

  On the forty-ninth day out from the Spotchals Transfer Station she stopped eating. There was no purpose behind it. She simply lacked the energy and the will to leave the cot. She turned her face to the wall and began shutting down.

  She woke in the sickbay with Bossman standing over her, looking annoyed.

  "What did you think you were doing, child?"

  Weak tears gathered in her eyes and spilled over. She stared at him without trying to answer. Dimly she remembered that she wasn't supposed to know this face. "Who're you?" she said finally, her voice a dry-leaf whisper.

  "That is not important. Answer the question, please."

  "Your voice…" She closed her eyes. "Nothing."

  "That is not an adequate response. What do, you mean?" She turned her head away. How could she explain when she didn't understand it herself?

  "You had food, a comfortable bed, facilities for washing and elimination. Everything necessary."

  Resentment giving her a spurious energy, Shadith kept her eyes closed and jeered silently at him. Stupid old Wahw! Don't know ass from eathole.

  "What is wrong with you, child?"

  Shadith kept a tight hold on her pride and said nothing. Her mind told her it was stupid, but her body got satisfaction out of silence. She went with, her body.

  Ajeri snorted. She came swiftly around the couch, caught Shadith by the shoulders and shook the breath out of her; all that exercising had given the Pilot a tigerish strength which she didn't bother trying to con trol. "Stop sulking, brat. Act like a baby and you be treated like one." She threw Shadith away from her. "Get your little mouth in gear, or I give you a spanking you won't forget."

  Rage exploding through her, struggling to retrieve her self-control, Shadith lay sprawled and panting where Ajeri had flung her. Careful, Shadow. That miserable ooj, that creeping bakbook. Wait, you remember wait? That braindead pervert, that… she… they… You can't do anything now. Not in the insplit. And not tied to this stupid cot. Can't do shit till we get where we're going. Fool them, pull their rotten strings and make the bastards dance.

  She crammed herself back into the role of child and let the child's words pour out: "I'm going crazy in that coffin. I need something to do. Give me my harp. Give me something bright to look at, red or blue or green or yellow, all that gray turns me moldy. Mold growing on my bones, mold growing over my eyes and on my tongue. I'll rot if I have to look at all that gray much longer. And fix the light so I can read. Give me books, magazines. Something to pass the time. Talk to me. What harm would that do you? You promised to protect me. You're killing me. Why can't you understand that?"

  He rubbed his stick thumb up and down his bony chin as he chewed over what she'd said; the harsh toplight shadowed his eyes and deepened the lines in his face, put a shine on the end of his long nose. There was less expression on his naked face than there'd been on the flesh mask he'd worn before.

  Ajeri stood behind him, watching skeptically, not wholly buying the innocent bit. She had more… call it connection… with others than he did, which meant that right now she was more dangerous than he was. Unless he got one of his insight flashes which the gods forbid.

  He cleared his throat, said mildly, "I put you there for your protection, child, for your purity. You were distressed by the, advances of that guard, I did not wish you to fear similar treatment here."

  Shadith told herself she was too tired to keep gnawing at her resentments. She pushed the hair off her face, looked vaguely around, then sat up. "I'm not afraid of men, I just don't want to be raped." She shrugged. "Who does? I mean, it's not the sort of thing a girl dreams about when she becomes marriageable."

  He nodded. "I see. You will go back to where you were, no, be quiet and listen. I have heard you. Some of what you have said will be done. Not all, you must not expect that." He produced a smile like a wince. "Come," he held out his hand, waited for her to take it. "Be patient with us. We are not very experienced with children."

  "Well, now you know what happens." She slid off the couch and let him lead her from the chamber.

  Twenty minutes after Shadith walked into her cell, the dim grayness changed, brightened all over, while a spot-a reading light-focused on the pillow end of the cot. She felt herself expanding like a paper flowerbud dropped in water. She laughed, clapped her hands. "Better better better," she caroled. "Oh, betttterrr."

  An hour later the chimes bonged, the slot slid open. Instead of food, there were six magazine paks and a reader on the tray.

  ***

  Ajeri stood in the doorway, a dark blue blanket draped over her arm, Shadith's harpcase hanging at her side. "You wanted it, you got it, brat. Hope you satisfied because you an't getting any more." She dumped the blanket on the floor, slid her arm from the strap and set the harpcase on the blanket, then she stepped back and the door slid closed.

  Thirty-four days later, eighty-three days out of the Transfer Station, Shadith lay on her stomach scribbling in her notebook. She dropped the stylus and closed the book when she felt the lurch as the ship emerged from the insplit and began droning along sublight. Her hands were shaking. She rubbed them along her trousers, pressed them hard against the zippers on her thighpockets, the little pain lost in the thunder of her uncertainties. All her playacting, all her maneuvering hadn't gained a millimeter's freedom; the most she'd achieved was the illusion she had some control over her situation. Illusion, not reality. That could change now. Bossman meant to use her; to do that, he had to take her out of storage. If she couldn't manage something once she was loose, she might as well pack it in.

  The vibration stopped.

  Orbit.

  Shadith was so familiar with the Pet now she was looking through his eyes almost as soon as the thought flitted through her head.

  The huge forescreen was lit. A blue and white world turned in it, the image large enough for the Pet to make out most of the detail despite his myopia.

  For the first time she saw Bossman Ginny sitting in the Captain's Chair; the Pet looked down at the skim of ash-gray ash-brown hair laid across Ginny's pale pink skull whenever he needed reassurance which he did fairly often; Ginny's mix of tension, eagerness and triumph made him nervous.

  Cool man wasn't so cool any more. He drummed fingers on the chair arm, clicked his tongue as he scanned readings and peered anxiously at the image of the world they were orbiting. "Kiskai. And three months early. Ajeri tiszteh, show me Aina'iril."

  "If you want a direct drop, it's over the horizon at the moment."

  "How long?"

  "Should be coming up round two hours twenty minutes on. I can pre-empt the Wapa-sat's recept-time, break off the collecting, or shift the ship, which means we'd have to move out of Sisipin's shadow."

  "We will wait. You can use the time, Jeri tiszt, to test the functioning of the pickup/shunts for all the satellites and start recoding the EYEs onboard. Impatience is a weakness we do not need t
o encourage. Moving the ship could be destructive. There are too many chart readers down there with a glass on the sky. We are vulnerable in the visible spectrum and I have no means of determining what the effect of a new celestial inhabitant would be; it might even wash out the Pasepawateo Mitewastewapal. That would leave us without the centerpiece of the production."

  Ajeri laughed. "What a mouthful. Only you, Ginny."

  "And forty million Kiskaids. Show me the Mistiko Otcha Cicip. It should be possible to do that without disturbing anything important, the Cicip should still be deserted, just a patch of trees and some bare rock."

  "One sacred playground coming up."

  The POV shifted rapidly, swooping down at terrifying speed. The Pet would not look at the screen, it made him dizzy. He curled up and licked at his genitals until the scene settled down.

  Even with the Pet's deficiencies of vision, Shadith could see a vast natural amphitheater, the crater of an anciently extinct volcano with grass like short green fur carpeting the interior, patches of trees scattered about, a rugged upheaval of naked stone.

  A number of small figures worked diligently at the grass, mowing it, pulling weeds, planting turfs wherever the crop looked thin or there was bare ground showing. Others, wooden yokes on their shoulders, were going and coming from beneath several broad low arches at the base of the ripple-fronted cliff, carrying buckets of water and tiles and mortar in, buckets full of rubble out.

  Cave under there. They're getting it ready for something.

  Ginny knows what, curses on his pointed head.

  Shadith yawned, blinked her surprise. Her head felt so heavy it was hard to keep focused through the Pet.

  Ginny cleared his throat. "It seems it is a good thing we are here early, Jeri tiszt. The tapwit priests are already beginning to put the place in order. Hmm. The Kihcikistilik island chain is below us now. Before you start the shunt tests, run a POV along it, I want to see…"

  His voice faded, the scene faded… Shadith plunged fathoms deep into sleep. Chapter 6. Hang your harp on a whisper tree

  Someone was shaking her.

  She came painfully awake, looked up into the liquid copper eyes of the lacertine captive. She was lying on a floor somewhere and he was kneeling beside her. She wasn't tracking too well, whatever Ginny used to put her out seemed to have pushed the slow-button in her head. She rubbed at her eyes, groped around with numb hands.

  Wood. There was wood all around her-floor, walls, ceiling, it was like being inside a crate, no, not a crate, more like being inside a jewelbox, beautifully assembled rectangles of wood, grain flowing into grain, the joins so tight they were invisible. There was a band of carving up near the ceiling, she could see shadows shifting across the low relief, her eyes blurred when she tried to make out the design. No windows. But the room was filled with light, dancing light, dappled with leafshadow. Thinking about that made her head ache, so she stopped. Door. She couldn't see the door, probably it was somewhere behind it-if there was a door. The room seemed to be rocking slowly in time with groans and creaks that crept through the walls. At first she thought it was her head playing games with her, then she felt the shifting of the floor under her back, the pressure and release. "Awawashahiken wepastan." She heard what she'd just said, blinked. "Kekwa…?"

  The lacertine grinned, baring a pair of curved needle fangs and the small sharp chisel teeth between them. "Yes, the room is moving, you're not off your head. And your tongue's not gone wild on you, give it a minute or two, it'll come loose from the local langue. We been imprinted. One of the more useful things our captor did us, though I hate to think what else he might've fiddled with."

  "E-heh. Ahhhh." She slapped the floor, then forgot speech for the moment and pushed up onto her feet. "Shadith," she said and held out her hand. "Of nowhere in particular." She blinked again. He was right, the twist of her tongue was gone.

  Eyes slitted, face contorted with silent laughter, he looked at the hand, then took it as if it were a precious object and bowed over it with exaggerated grace. "Naiyol Hanee, late of Spotchals, born and bred of DunyaDzi which you won't have heard of." He straightened and shook her hand gravely, removed his own and watched with amiable interest as she let her arm drop. "Call me Kikun."

  She raised her brows, not quite sure how to take him. "Kikun it is." Hearing a groan behind her, she turned.

  The other captive was sitting up, clutching at his head. "Wa!" he roared, "Misht'co mameash! Olowashish n'ta kawinosikoo! Yaiiii."

  She chuckled, met a hot yellow gaze. "I know, I know," she said. "My head was sore as a boil, too, and I was ready to bark like a dog and bite anything that moved. Yeh. Kikun said we been imprinted with the local langue. My name's Shadith. Who're you?"

  "Rohant vohv Voallts, Ciocan of Family Voallts, Gazgaort of Company Voallts Korlatch of Spotch-Helspar. I don't know you." He'd got his tongue untwisted faster than she did.

  "No reason you should. I've never been down on Spotchals surface. Ginny scooped me up when I came round a corner minding my own business and ran into the lot of you. According to him, his Luck brought me to his hands. What I think of my Luck is too obscene for mixed company."

  Rohant the Ciocan went still as a startled yool, though only for a moment. Then his ears twitched, twitched again; a translucent inner eyelid swept across his eyes, snapped down. If he'd had a tail, it would have been switching back and forth, in short, sharp jerks. "Ginny?"

  She shook her head. "I don't want to talk in here."

  – Your call, csecse." He came to his feet with an impressive elasticity given eighty-three days under drugs and bloodfeed. Fists on his hips, his mane brushing the ceiling, he inspected the room.

  The floor shifted under them.

  "What the hell is this place? It's moving." He sounded so indignant that Shadith was surprised into a giggle.

  He glanced at her, snorted, then crossed the room in two long strides, slapped his hand against the broad button on the jamb.

  The door opened toward him, nearly hit him in the nose. He snorted again, ducked through the opening.

  Shadith blinked as Kikun came round her and went out after the Ciocan; she'd forgotten him completely. It was as if he'd erased himself from her senses-all her senses. Which was very odd indeed. She was ALWAYS aware of people around her. She might not pay any attention to them, but she knew they were there. Slowly, thoughtfully, she followed Kikun and walked into a bare box like the room she'd just left, though about twice as large and with a few welcome additions, her harpcase, for one, and her travelpouch, along with two other, smaller pouches sewn from twill.

  She toed a twill pouch. "Yours?"

  Rohant shrugged. "If they're strangers, I suppose so. Courtesy of our captor."

  She opened her case, smiled as she touched the instrument inside. Swardheld had spent months on the harp, getting her shape right, polishing her wood, dark chestnut streaked with umber, until it glowed, carving her floral cartouches, laying in her ivory plates and scrolls of copper and silver wire. Shadith set her hand flat on the strings, a gentle caress meant as much for Swardheld as for the harp herself. She shut the case, clicked the catches home and began looking through her travelpoucheverything in place, even her weapon satchel. She thumbed the locks on the satchel, scowled as nothing happened.

  "That bitch, she broke my locks."

  She tipped back the lid, took out her stunner, checked the charge. Topped up. Busy little minkhas, aren't they. Needier? Yup, clip's full, juiced up and ready to go. Cutter. Pry-tractor. EY Es. Picklocks. Rand-read. Miniprobe. Knives, one, two… uh… hunh! All seven. With fingerprints all over them.

  She didn't like people handling her things, she didn't like it almost as much as she didn't like that creep guard handling her. She found a scrap of sham and began polishing the blade of the buwie.

  "You're a surprising little kit-cat, Shadith." Rohant the Ciocan wiggled his shaggy brows. "Where you taking all that?"

  "University." She inspected the steel, smiled
when she saw the fingerprints were gone. She slid the buwie into its slot and drew out the crystal stittoe, swore at the cloudy marks on the transparent blade and exchanged the sham for a glassrag.

  "Always struck me as a peaceful sort of place. You planning to make war on the professors?"

  "That's stupid. We'll get along a lot better if you forget what I look like and stop treating me like some vacant-brained nit. While I'm finishing here, why don't you.." she looked around, scowled when she saw Kikun had gone somewhere; she'd missed him again, "… that little man's a ghost! Why don't you follow him and find out what this place is?" She began working on the stittoe's blade, very careful around the edges.

  He grunted, went stomping off.

  Shadith smiled. Should be used to it, old lion. What I hear, a Ciocan's Toerfeles beats up on him just for the practice.

  She inspected the stittoe, slotted it and took up the first of the throwing knives, then worked steadily until she had all the blades smooth and gleaming and back in their slots. She looked through the rest of her instrumentation, gave the surfaces a quick wipe with a dustcover. She tried out the latches; they snapped home with satisfying chinks. The locks were broken, but she could clamp the satchel shut and be reasonably certain it'd stay closed. She rubbed at her nose, contemplated its battered simleather sides, thinking over what had happened to her, wondering where she should go from here. I'd forgot what it's like being weak, how you have to behave, how wary you have to be. It sucks, having to walk round ready to massacre people. Words, words, Shadow, just words. Why'd you bring these toys if you didn't plan to use them? Wrong mindset, that's what. If you'd had one of those shooters back there, what would it've got you? Dumped in a lethal chamber, that's all. Can't fight the fuzz with force, you've got to use your head, not your gut. I suppose so. Right. You should have gone straight for Guard Headquarters, dropping Lee's name whenever you had a chance. You should have flattered them, got them to show you around their operation as a courtesy to Hunters Inc. You played the child well enough for Ginny, why not for that creep's boss? Tell that High Hoofta stories enough about Lee to addle his brain, if any, and tickle his gizzard, tease him into escorting you to the shuttle. What could the creep do then? But your mind wasn't right, was it? Blind and bedamned. I suppose so, but cleverness doesn't work all the time; people can be so sharp they cut themselves. I need friends, connections, backing. And in the meantime, I need the damn gun.